Mississippi added 19 new behavioral health providers in the latest CMS NPI registry weekly update, contributing to a total of 35 providers for the state. This represents less than 1% of the national total for the week, indicating a relatively modest but consistent growth in Mississippi's behavioral health workforce.
ABA Workforce Dynamics
Within the applied behavior analysis (ABA) sector, Mississippi saw 4 providers associated with BCBA credentials and 3 providers associated with RBT credentials. It is important to note that these counts reflect unique providers identified by either their credential string or primary taxonomy. With no providers holding dual BCBA and RBT credentials, the state's current ratio of RBTs to BCBAs is close to 1:1. This suggests a very tight supervision capacity, where each BCBA would be responsible for a limited number of RBTs, potentially constraining the expansion of direct ABA services.
Provider Demographics and Activity
Of the 27 individual providers registered, the workforce is predominantly female, with 74% (20 individuals) identifying as such, while 22% are male (6 individuals), and 4% identify as nonbinary (1 individual). This gender distribution aligns with national trends in the behavioral health field. Activity is concentrated in cities like Jackson, Ridgeland, and Brandon. No specific organizations appeared multiple times in this week's update, suggesting a diverse landscape of smaller practices or individual practitioners rather than dominant multi-state chains.
This data suggests that while Mississippi is seeing some growth in its behavioral health workforce, particularly in ABA, the limited number of BCBAs compared to RBTs indicates a significant need for more supervisory capacity to enhance access to quality ABA services across the state.
