Newport Healthcare CEO Transition and Staff Layoffs
By Chris Larson | October 16, 2026
Newport Healthcare’s CEO office is turning over at the same time it institutes additional layoffs and facility closures to again shrink its national footprint. This is the third such action in the past year or so.
Brian Setzer, who became CEO on December 9, 2024, will be replaced by his predecessor, Joe Procopio, who started as CEO in June 2019. The company notified employees of the leadership change on Wednesday. Procopio will lead the company alongside its CFO-turned-president, Brian Heinrichs.
Heinrichs was hired as CFO in April 2025. He handed over the CFO gig in August to take up the president role. The company’s previous vice president and controller, Todd Scott, took over the CFO role.
A company representative confirmed the CEO transition. They also confirmed that the company is closing outpatient and residential locations and thinning out its administrative workforce. However, they declined to specify which locations and how many staffers in total would be impacted.
This move is an effort to put the company on a path to long-term sustainability. The youth-focused segments of behavioral health have seen notable challenges. For Newport Healthcare, those challenges include reimbursement pressures, operating costs, and changing referral patterns. These are not necessarily unique to the company.
Earlier in the month, BHB reported that Newport Healthcare had eliminated 68 roles at a residential facility in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Around the same time, Clarvida and Comprehensive Life Resources detailed layoffs and facility closures.
On Tuesday, 104 administrative staff members were told they would be let go. In the last few weeks, at least 100 more roles have been impacted as the company trims staff at specific treatment locations, according to public government documents: 40 staff at five home-based residential treatment facilities in Ventura County, California, were laid off. The company’s location in Waukesha, Wisconsin, shuttered its intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programming (IOP and PHP).
The Ventura County facilities are high-end homes where the company offers residential treatment for mental health and substance use disorders for children and young adults, depending on the specific program.