Heather Dixon’s diverse healthcare experience across payer, provider, and pharmacy sectors informs her approach to financial leadership at Acadia Healthcare. Her career spans over 25 years in Fortune 50 companies, providing perspective on complex healthcare business models and financial dynamics.
Dixon’s tenure at Aetna, where she served as vice president, controller, and chief accounting officer, provided deep understanding of health insurance operations. This payer-side experience proves valuable as Acadia Healthcare negotiates contracts with commercial insurers and navigates Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement policies.
At Walgreens Boots Alliance, Heather Dixon served as senior vice president and global controller, overseeing financial reporting and accounting operations for a massive retail pharmacy organization. This role involved managing complex international operations, regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions, and financial consolidation processes.
Her most recent position before joining Acadia Healthcare was CFO at Everside Health, a direct primary care and mental health provider. Dixon led financial operations for 385 health centers across 34 states, gaining facility-based operational experience directly relevant to her current role.
Board service provides Dixon additional perspective on healthcare industry trends and governance practices. As an independent board member of Addus HomeCare, she participates in strategic discussions and serves on the audit committee for a home health services provider. Her previous board service at Signify Health exposed her to value-based care models and health technology applications.
Dixon’s cross-sector experience enables her to evaluate Acadia Healthcare’s business from multiple angles. Understanding payer economics helps inform pricing strategies and contract negotiations. Provider operational experience supports assessments of facility performance and capital allocation decisions. Pharmacy knowledge aids evaluation of medication-assisted treatment operations within Acadia Healthcare’s comprehensive treatment centers.
Financial strategy under Dixon’s leadership emphasizes disciplined growth and capital efficiency. She evaluates potential investments using cost of capital analysis and return thresholds. “We start with doing a pretty thorough analysis of what’s our cost of capital,” Dixon explained when discussing capital allocation frameworks.
Heather Dixon’s communication style with investors and analysts reflects her extensive finance background. She provides detailed financial bridges explaining quarterly performance variances, breaks down startup cost impacts by service line, and addresses specific investor questions about reserve adequacy and facility performance metrics.
Dixon’s approach to financial guidance balances transparency with appropriate conservatism. Acadia Healthcare’s 2025 guidance incorporated multiple headwinds including elevated startup costs, supplemental payment timing, and underperforming facility impacts. This conservative approach aims to establish achievable targets while maintaining credibility with the investment community.
Risk management represents another area where Dixon’s broad experience proves valuable. Healthcare providers face complex risks including professional liability, regulatory compliance, reimbursement changes, and labor market dynamics. Dixon’s background across multiple healthcare sectors provides frameworks for identifying and mitigating these risks.
As Acadia Healthcare continues executing its growth strategy, Heather Dixon’s financial leadership balances aggressive capacity expansion with financial discipline and stakeholder communication.