Case Study: The Guidance Center achieves $2M revenue growth and reduced administrative overhead with Netsmart's Avatar

The Guidance Center Does More With Less, With Avatar™

The Guidance Center is a behavioral health provider serving Leavenworth, Jefferson and Atchison counties in Kansas that faced thin staffing and tight budgets—its counties ranked near the bottom in state funding. Leadership set out to reduce administrative overhead, improve staff communication and better coordinate care, but met staff skepticism as the organization prepared for major cultural and workflow changes.

Partnering with Netsmart, The Guidance Center implemented Avatar (Practice Management, Clinical Workstation, Document Management and MobileConnect) through a phased, clinician‑driven rollout. The system eliminated paper forms, allowed staff to grow from 75 to 155 without adding administrative hires, boosted collections to more than 92% of billables (adding about $2M), reduced missed and cancelled appointments with automated reminders, enabled academic publications, created an integrated CRM and even supported rapid EHR deployment for another center.

The Guidance Center

Erik Nyberg

Information Systems Director