For too many Coloradans, the promise of mental-health care remains out of reach, especially when conventional treatments fall short. That reality drove us at Axis Integrated Mental Health to acquire BestMind. This strategic step is not about market share or branding. It is about a crisis, a commitment, and a clear path forward for our state.
Colorado’s Mental-Health Crisis: Not Just A Statistic
In our most recent analysis about Colorado’s mental health crisis, we exposed how Colorado, despite its reputation for health and outdoors-living, remains perilously near the bottom for adult mental health. Adults now rank 48th in the nation for mental health, while 282,000 Colorado adults report serious thoughts of suicide.
These aren’t just numbers but people—the mom who is too depressed to seek prenatal care, the construction workers who are dying at twice the rate of the general population from suicide, and the first responders in mountain towns who won’t seek support because of stigma. Put simply: the challenge is real, urgent, and growing. It’s not enough to offer more clinics. People need more effective treatments, better knowledge on how to maximize insurance benefits, and someone willing to hold their hand and answer questions when they’re desperate without making them feel worse.
Why We Selected BestMind
BestMind stood out for three reasons: a dedicated provider team, a holistic care philosophy, and operational alignment with our mission.
- Provider strength
BestMind has assembled highly skilled psychiatrists, PAs, and nurse practitioners with deep experience in treatment-resistant depression with complex comorbidities. Their expertise adds capacity, depth, and credibility to our clinical team. - Beyond daily pills
Too many clinics equate “care” with a prescription pad. BestMind has consistently looked beyond that—therapy plus psychiatry plus advanced treatment options. That fits our model at Axis Integrated Mental Health: integrated care under one roof, where the patient is not bounced between silos but guided through a unified journey. - Shared mission
Crucially, BestMind shared our values: patients first, outcomes always. Their Denver Tech Center location, patient-first mindset, and willingness to invest in innovation (rather than simply volume) made the acquisition more than a transaction—it became a partnership of purpose.
How the Acquisition Accelerates Our Mission
Bringing BestMind into the Axis family gives us three major leaps forward:
- Expanded access: More providers mean shorter waitlists, more appointment slots, and faster routes to effective care. It also allows us to serve more people in the surrounding Denver Tech Center area.
- Deeper innovation: BestMind’s clinicians add operational know-how for advanced interventions—which means more patients can benefit from breakthroughs such as Deep TMS or Spravato (esketamine)—treatments that Axis Integrated Mental Health already champions.
- Stronger statewide impact: By uniting forces, our footprint grows not just by geography but by influence. We signal to payers, insurers, policymakers, and communities that Colorado’s mental-health crisis demands systems-level responses, not incremental fixes.
Why Now And What It Means
Most acquisitions happen because one company needs scale or market share. Ours happened because the crisis cannot wait.
Colorado ranks #50 for prevalence of mental illness, #48 for adult mental health, and #50 for substance abuse disorder. And yet the system appears robust: Colorado is #14 for access and #10 for mental-health workforce availability. This contradiction tells us the problem isn’t only capacity—it’s fragmentation, inertia, and lack of integrated innovation.
By acquiring BestMind, we leapfrog those barriers. We no longer ask, “Can we expand?” We ask, “How fast can we help?”
What it means for patients: If you’ve tried pills and still feel stuck, you now have more options. If you live in a county with no child psychiatrist, you are part of a network actively deploying resources. If you worry about insurance, our combined team has more clout to negotiate, support, and deliver.
What it means for Colorado: The next statewide ranking drop might flip into a ranking gain. The 282K adults with serious suicidal thoughts are not invisible—they’re being met with more muscle, more heart, and more innovation.
The acquisition of BestMind is far more than a business move. It is a concrete step toward fulfilling our promise: to make world-class mental-health care in Colorado accessible, effective, and compassionate. Together, our teams stand ready not just to treat symptoms, but to change lives. In a state that has free-fallen to 48th for adult mental health, we intend to climb—and we begin today.
If you or someone you love has felt the weight of a system built to fail, know this: we are here, we are ready, and we will not stop until better care is the norm. Because your mental health matters. Your life matters.
