It's been a good long while since I've checked in with Psychiatric Solutions (NASDAQ:PSYS), but it seems like a lot of the basics to the story haven't changed all that much. Above all, it's still a story about consolidation and growing the company's share in the highly fragmented market for in-patient psychiatric care.

To that end, the company announced another sizable acquisition. Psychiatric Solutions will be buying Alternative Behavioral Services for $250 million in cash. This deal will bring nine in-patient facilities with a total of 1,050 beds, augmenting the company's current 59 facilities and 6,500 beds. At about $191 million in revenue, the purchase price doesn't seem out of line (nor on a per-bed basis, either), though I would have liked a bit more information on EBITDA, cash flow, and so on.

Psychiatric Solutions continues to strike me as a high-risk/high-potential sort of story. I think the market outlook for psychiatric care is fine, and I think the company has an easier environment in which to operate than, say, a traditional hospital like HCA (NYSE:HCA) or Tenet (NYSE:THC). What's more, while same-facility volume growth may have been a bit sluggish at late, I'm still more inclined to think that's more the exception than the rule.

Now for the flipside. The company is absolutely growing in accounting terms, but is it building real value? Comparing the return on invested capital to even a modest estimate of the cost of that capital would suggest "no." And this is still a story with some vulnerabilities -- including changes to reimbursement and regulatory issues like an investigation at a Virginia facility.

These sorts of investment ideas will age you prematurely. On one hand, there really are examples of companies that built themselves through acquisitions and later delivered the strong returns on capital to validate the idea. Then again, there are also plenty of companies that tried this and collapsed into fiery heaps. I'm still of the opinion that it's a good and promising company in an attractive market, but I won't argue with those who are gun-shy of these health-care service roll-up concepts.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares.)