Positive Development featured in the media

Positive Development has appointed Dr. Alisa Bahl and Jon Pardew to its Board of Directors to help scale therapy options, broaden access to care, and offer families a meaningful alternative to traditional behavioral therapy as autism diagnoses rise and pressure grows on healthcare systems and insurers to improve outcomes while managing costs.

A family sits down with Tulsa’s News on 6 to talk about the support they’ve received and how the company’s play-based, parent mediated, and developmental relationship-based therapy has been life-changing for them. Positive Development Clinical Leader Alex Smith adds that the company strives to meet kids and families where they are and build upon their strengths and interests.

The Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness (ABHW) has submitted four policy recommendations to the federal government calling for standardized credentialing, supervision ratios, and clinical quality measures for ABA providers — driven by years of explosive Medicaid spending growth, widespread documentation failures, and mounting fraud concerns. Health plans are now pushing for more oversight and evidence-based guardrails in autism therapy, while still emphasizing individualized treatment. Companies like Positive Development's developmental relationship-based approach to care and its Positive Development Model (PDM) are gaining attention as an alternative approach amid broader industry reform.

As autism diagnoses rise and Medicaid spending on ABA therapy skyrockets — in some states by thousands of percent — Positive Development President Chad Pomeroy is making the case that the autism care system shouldn't rely on a single therapeutic approach for such a complex, spectrum-based condition. Positive Development's developmental relationship-based therapy model, which requires just 6–8 hours per week versus ABA's 20–40, showed 68% lower per-member costs on average than comparable ABA therapy cost averages over the same period in a three-year claims analysis with a regional payer, positioning it as a lower-intensity, evidence-based alternative that could meaningfully expand access while easing the financial pressure on payers.

In a Behavioral Health Tech webinar, four experts across provider, payer, and clinical perspectives argued that autism care is overdue for a structural overhaul — one that moves beyond ABA as the singular covered intervention and embraces a broader range of evidence-based approaches, including developmental and naturalistic therapies, at varying intensities. With autism now affecting 1 in 31 children and payer costs growing 50%+ year over year, panelists — including Positive Development CEO Mike Suiters — made the case that the system must shift from paying for volume to paying for value, while also expanding care to serve the whole family across all ages.

McLean, Virginia-based Positive Development secured $45 million in debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank and Pinegrove Venture Partners to fuel its continued national expansion. As the nation's largest provider of developmental relationship-based therapy for autism, Positive Development currently operates in nine states and aims to eventually offer services in all 50 states through both private insurance and Medicaid.

Autism care companies providing ABA and other forms of therapy to autistic children are feeling the pressure from the cost containment efforts by public and private insurers. Some are focusing on data, outcomes, and quality of their services to deal with payer scrutiny. Autism startup, Positive Development, offers a developmental relationship-based therapy that differs from ABA and is utilizing data to prove its services to insurers – including its three-year analysis that aimed to show how it lowered costs for a large regional nonprofit payer when compared to traditional ABA services.

Positive Development, a provider of developmental relationship-based therapy for autistic children, recently closed on a debt financing facility for up to $45 million. The funding will allow the company to expand into new and existing markets as well as go after strategic acquisition opportunities.

McLean, Virginia’s Positive Development secured $45 million in new funding, just six months after raking in more than $50 million to expand its autism therapy to more kids. The company said the latest capital injection positions it to accelerate a national expansion, which involves adding both real estate and services across Greater Washington.

Positive Development closed a $45 million debt financing facility from Silicon Valley Bank and Pinegrove Venture Partners, following its $51.5 million Series C round in August 2025 — bringing its total recent fundraising to nearly $100 million. The McLean, Virginia-based provider of developmental relationship-based therapy plans to use the funds to expand into new markets, pursue acquisitions, and deepen its commercial and Medicaid payer partnerships as it works toward offering services in all 50 states.

Positive Development closed a $45 million non-dilutive debt financing facility from Silicon Valley Bank and Pinegrove Venture Partners to fund geographic expansion, strategic acquisitions, and broader access to its developmental therapy and autism diagnostics services across both commercial and Medicaid health plans. The raise builds on the company's recent $51.5 million Series C and new payer partnerships with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and Oklahoma Complete Health, reinforcing growing demand for its lower-intensity, lower-cost developmental relationship-based model of care as an alternative to traditional ABA therapy.

Health Tech Nerds hosted Positive Development CEO Mike Suiters and Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder to discuss how their developmental relationship-based model – based upon Developmental Relationship-Based Interventions (DRBI) – offers a clinically distinct, lower-intensity alternative to ABA at a time when payers and states are struggling to manage rapidly rising autism therapy costs. The conversation covers how DRBI differs from ABA, the challenge of measuring outcomes and building value-based care models in behavioral health, and why the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry recently endorsed DRBI as a viable alternative in a formal policy statement.

A three-year claims analysis conducted with a regional nonprofit health plan found that Positive Development's developmental relationship-based therapy model costs 68% less per member per year than comparable ABA therapy, even while contracting at higher hourly rates — because the lower-intensity model requires significantly fewer hours of care. During the same period, the payer's ABA costs were growing at a compounding 28% year-over-year rate, making the findings a strong case for developmental approaches as cost-effective, value-based alternatives for commercial and Medicaid payers.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder discusses how DRBI, NDBI, and ABA all have solid evidence bases and can be appropriate for children across all functional levels — the key is matching the intervention to the child's interests, learning style, and family preferences rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach. His comments build on AACAP's updated policy statement calling for expanded autism treatment options, reinforcing that the goal is more individualized, evidence-based decision-making rather than defaulting to any single therapy modality.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder discusses AACAP's landmark October 2025 policy statement — the result of an 8-year deliberative process — which formally endorses DRBI and NDBI approaches alongside ABA as evidence-based options for autistic children and adolescents. The policy also calls on insurers, policymakers, and health systems to expand training, telehealth support, and insurance coverage across the full range of interventions so families can access care that best aligns with their child's strengths, interests, and developmental needs.

In a podcast interview with The Healthcare Technology Report, Positive Development Co-Founder and CEO Mike Suiters shares how his background in venture capital — combined with personal experience with neurodivergence — led him to build a developmental relationship-based therapy model that integrates speech, mental health, and occupational therapy into a single, play-based, family-centered framework. The company’s, philosophy is centered on seeing neurodivergent children through the lens of potential rather than limitation.

AACAP published a new policy statement recommending that health insurers and physicians expand autism care coverage to include Developmental Relationship-Based Interventions (DRBI) alongside ABA — a milestone Positive Development calls a major validation of the momentum behind lower-intensity, relationship-based therapy models. The announcement reinforces Positive Development's push for payers to adopt value-based contracts that reimburse outcomes rather than hours, reduce costs, and expand access — particularly for Medicaid populations where affordability and access gaps are most acute.

In this Goodwin Law client spotlight, Positive Development Co-founder and CEO Mike Suiters discusses how the company's developmental relationship-based model differs from traditional ABA — emphasizing lower intensity (6–7 hours/week), family participation, and a focus on foundational developmental capacities rather than behavior modification. He also shares his philosophy on building a sustainable business by taking a long-term view with payers, investing in clinical quality and technology to reduce administrative friction, and listening to autistic self-advocates to shape how the field defines outcomes and quality.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield signed a national agreement with Positive Development to bring developmental relationship-based therapy to autistic children, starting with Virginia members enrolled in employer-based and individual health plans, with plans to pursue Virginia Medicaid coverage as well. The partnership operates under a value-based arrangement that rewards performance through outcomes measurement — reinforcing Positive Development's model of delivering quality care at lower intensity and cost than traditional ABA.

Positive Development announced a national agreement with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, launching first in Virginia to serve autistic members across employer-based and individual health plans, with plans to expand to other states and pursue Virginia Medicaid coverage. The partnership includes Positive Development's value-based care arrangement that rewards performance through outcomes measurement — consistent with its model of delivering higher-quality care at lower cost and intensity than traditional ABA therapy.

Positive Development’s Co-founder and CEO, Mike Suiters, was a panelist for this Behavioral Health Tech webinar and shared key insight along with the other participants about the current state of autism care, the challenges payers are facing, how providers are addressing current market challenges, advice they’d give to payers who are after better outcomes, and where we go from here as an industry.

This Health Tech Nerds Q&A with our Co-founder and CEO Mike Suiters digs into where we are today with the seemingly out-of-control autism therapy costs and why offering more choices benefits everyone involved: payers, providers, and most importantly - families.

Positive Development celebrated the grand opening of its new autism therapy center in Tulsa, offering child-led, play-based developmental services for children from infancy through age 18 — including sensory activities, family support, and parent coaching. The center serves families both in-clinic and in-home, with a focus on building community for families who often feel isolated, and is currently accepting new clients.

Positive Development announced a new partnership with Oklahoma Complete Health to bring its integrated, relationship-based developmental therapy model to SoonerSelect families in northeast Oklahoma. The partnership aims to reduce barriers, improve outcomes, and expand access for families of neurodivergent children, with services available both in-home and at Positive Development's new Tulsa therapy center.

Positive Development, a provider of developmental relationship-based therapy for autistic children and their families, received $51.5 million in a Series C funding round, which will be used to advance its artificial intelligence platform, expand into new and existing markets and invest in new health plan and state Medicaid partnerships.

Positive Development raised $51.5 million in a Series C round co-led by aMoon, B Capital, and Flare Capital Partners — bringing total funding to over $100 million — to expand its developmental relationship-based therapy model across existing and new geographies, advance its technology platform, and deepen value-based partnerships with health plans and Medicaid programs. With autism now affecting 1 in 31 children and traditional ABA costing over $50,000 per child annually, the company is positioning its relationship-based, lower-cost model as a scalable alternative to meet growing demand.

Positive Development raised a $51.5 million Series C — co-led by aMoon Fund, B Capital, and Flare Capital Partners — to scale its DRBI-based autism therapy model, which it pitches to cost-conscious payers as a lower-intensity, lower-cost alternative to ABA. The company plans to use the funds to triple its client base, expand into new markets, build out alternative payment model arrangements with commercial and Medicaid payers, and continue developing its proprietary tech platform — including AI tools for care quality, scheduling, and outcomes tracking.

Positive Development closed a $51.5 million Series C round co-led by new investor aMoon alongside existing investors B Capital and Flare Capital Partners, bringing total funding to over $100 million, to expand its developmental relationship-based therapy model that costs 50% less than comparable ABA programs. The funds will support geographic expansion, new commercial and Medicaid payer partnerships, and continued development of the company's proprietary AI and technology platform to improve care quality and the parent experience.

McLean-based Positive Development has raised $51.5 million in new funding to expand autism care to more kids and families as demand for its services mounts. The 5-year-old startup intends to broaden its presence within its existing markets and break into new ones. The work involves getting its services covered by more health plans and building out its technology infrastructure — to improve how it measures clinical quality and outcomes, give it the capability to handle scheduling and other administrative work, and integrate artificial intelligence.

Developmental relationship-based interventions have been around for many years, but have not received the level of attention that intervention approaches based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) have received. Positive Development’s Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder and Special Advisor for Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships, Andrea Davis dive into how developmental approaches advocates are currently involved in collaborative efforts to bring greater awareness and funding to DRBI. They discuss the justification and research basis for the work currently being undertaken to provide families with greater options for supporting their children’s development.

Speech therapy, delivered by speech-language pathologists (SLPs), helps children and adults improve communication, language, voice, and swallowing disorders through personalized, play-based or goal-oriented treatment tailored to each person's age, diagnosis, and needs. Positive Development DC Clinical Director and board-certified SLP, Liesl Hartmann shares how starting therapy early is especially important, as it takes advantage of critical brain development windows, and how for autistic children in particular, SLPs play a key role in helping them find their voice, whether through spoken language or assistive communication tools.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder highlights a critical gap in how psychiatry and diagnostic systems recognize sensory processing challenges — noting that ICD-10 codes currently link sensory processing disorder exclusively to autism, despite sensory difficulties occurring across many conditions. Feder calls for broader integration of sensory processing research into psychiatric care, pointing to the growing evidence base showing that developmental relationship-based approaches that incorporate sensory processing have measurable effects on social communication outcomes.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder urges pediatricians and caregivers to reframe sensory play not as a toolkit of toys, but as a relationship-driven strategy — understanding each child's unique sensory profile to reduce overwhelm and support connection and communication. He cautions against defaulting to medication for irritability or inattention in autistic children before exploring sensory factors first, and encourages families facing long wait times to practice mindful, curious daily interaction as a meaningful starting point.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder shares how sensory bottles are especially beneficial for children with sensory processing difficulties or autism, as engaging in sensory-rich activities within a relational context helps them better understand and navigate the world without becoming overwhelmed. Parents and caregivers can get started with these 10 DIY sensory bottle recipes.

Behavioral Health Business reports that while ABA remains the dominant insurance-covered autism therapy — largely fueled by private equity investment — providers are increasingly diversifying into multidisciplinary models that incorporate speech, occupational, and other therapies alongside or instead of ABA. Positive Development is highlighted as a notable exception, offering an ABA-free model centered on developmental relationship-based and parent mediated therapy that has secured coverage from payers representing over 60 million Americans by demonstrating lower costs and strong outcomes compared to ABA-centric care.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder joined a national panel of experts to explore language-based learning disabilities, examining their signs, challenges, and the strategies that help students succeed from kindergarten through college. The segment highlights how the right tools, support, and understanding can help students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and related challenges overcome obstacles to reach their full potential.

Positive Development's Executive Medical Director Dr. Josh Feder explains how the Positive Development Model (PDM) that draws from Developmental Relationship-Based Interventions (DRBI) offers a cost-effective, evidence-based alternative to traditional ABA that empowers parents, caregivers, and paraprofessionals to strengthen a child's relationships, communication, and independence. He highlights California's Senate Bill 805 as a model for expanding insurance coverage of developmental relationship-based care, noting that states like New Jersey and Illinois are following suit as growing research continues to validate DRBI's efficacy.

Positive Development secured $10 million in funding led by Healthworx — the investment arm of nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield plan CareFirst — to expand its alternative payment model arrangements with payers, marking Healthworx's largest investment to date. The McLean, Virginia-based provider, which delivers a lower-intensity developmental relationship-based care model will use the capital to scale its approach as autism-related spending for payers has grown 50% over the past five years.

Dr. Jennie Trocchio, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Positive Development, stops by the Autism Resource podcast to discuss the developmental relationship-based therapy the company provides and how families can access their services.

Dr. Jennie Trocchio, Vice President of Clinical Operations at Positive Development, joined the Exploring Different Brains podcast to discuss how Positive Development's neurodiversity-affirming, developmental relationship-based therapy differs from traditional behavioral approaches by following the child's lead, building connection, and focusing on strengths. She highlights how this approach empowers both autistic individuals and their families to foster meaningful relationships and development in a respectful, playful, and individualized way.