Lovely Day ABA Shutters in Greensboro Citing a Medicaid Dispute

Closure Notice on a Tuesday

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Parents got the email Tuesday morning. The clinic would not open. The transportation van would not run.

Lovely Day ABA & Autism Services, a Greensboro practice that served about 100 client families and employed about 75 people, told families and staff in an email on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 that it was closing, according to WFMY News2 and FOX8 WGHP.

The founder, a board-certified behavior analyst (BCBA) since 2015, told WFMY News2 by phone that the problem came down to Medicaid paperwork. Prior-authorization approvals her clinic had relied on since October 2025 were later flagged by a Medicaid payer, she said, and the related claims went unpaid. In her email to parents, the founder said she had spent her own retirement and savings to keep the clinic running and cover payroll before running out of resources.

For families, there was no time to prepare.

“My heart dropped into my stomach.” — Renee Simpson, parent of a Lovely Day client, to WFMY News2 (May 2026)

Simpson, whose 7-year-old autistic son had attended Lovely Day for about three years, told WFMY News2 that finding a new placement would mean restarting prior-authorization paperwork from scratch. “I still have to prove to the insurance company that my child is still indeed autistic,” she said.

A Six-Figure Dispute Dating to October

FOX8 WGHP reported the unpaid balance runs into the six figures. Neither the clinic nor the payer has disclosed an exact amount.

The clinic says it spent months trapped in the Medicaid appeals process while the disputed claims went unpaid, and that it ran out of money before closing. WFMY News2 and FOX8 WGHP both tried to reach the Medicaid payer; WFMY said it was “working to confirm” which one was involved, and FOX8 said it got no response by press time.

Open Questions

Several questions are unresolved.

The founder has described the closure as a dispute over prior-authorization approvals she says were honored and then disclaimed. Because the Medicaid payer has not been publicly named, that account stands unrebutted — no one has confirmed or contested it.

It remains unclear whether the payer was recouping claims it had already paid or refusing to authorize continued services, and whether the clinic’s appeal will succeed in time for it to reopen. Lovely Day ABA hopes to reopen if the dispute is resolved.

AT A GLANCE

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