January 12, 2025 • 77 mins
Tragedy and triumph define the deeply personal journey of Jordan Lewis, an attorney who has made it his mission to champion mental health parity. Listen as Jordan opens up about loss and the journey of a parent with children in recovery from alcoholism and substance use. The episode offers an intimate glimpse into the complexities of family, the resilience needed for recovery, and the relentless pursuit of advocacy in mental health.
Join us as we confront the often frustrating realities of navigating healthcare systems for mental health treatment. Witness the challenges Jordan faced when advocating for his daughter after a miraculous coma recovery and his intense efforts to secure proper care against the odds. Through stories of self-advocacy, we explore the importance of questioning medical professionals and emphasize the empowerment that comes from informed involvement in the recovery process, including the difficult yet vital task of setting boundaries.
Jordan dissects the intricacies of the Mental Health Parity Act and the legal battles for insurance coverage of non-traditional therapies like wilderness and equine therapy. His insights into redefining therapeutic approaches and the societal biases against mental health treatment offer a fresh perspective on the ongoing fight for legislative and insurance support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello folks and welcome back to Mental Health
Matters.
I'm Todd Weatherly, your host,therapeutic consultant,
behavioral health expert, withme today.
I have a colleague and nowfriend, mr Jordan Lewis,
attorney and mental healthparity advocate with JML Law.
Jordan is a 1979, we're goingto try not to date him too bad
1979 graduate of WilliamsCollege in Williamstown, mass,
(00:25):
where he was an All-Americanswimmer.
After years in the daily newsworld, he started law school at
the University of Minnesota.
Post-graduation he worked forRobbins, kaplan Miller and
Cressy, now one of the mostsuccessful plaintiff's law firms
in the country.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
In 1992, jordan started working with a small
Minneapolis-based commercial lawfirm known as Siegel Brill and
honed his practice over the next20 years until moving to Fort
Lauderdale, florida, with hisfamily in 2012 to work with
Kelly Ustall, a preeminentplaintiff's law firm there in
Southern Florida.
This was a complete circle forJordan, leading to opening
(01:05):
Jordan Lewis PA in 2016, jml Law.
But the specialty of hispractice is what we're here to
talk about, and his personalstory connects him to the world
of recovery in an incrediblyprofound way, which I am
grateful that I got to sit andlisten to just in an intimate
lunch setting and connect withyou, jordan.
Welcome to the show and thanksfor joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thank you, todd, appreciate the introduction you
nailed it.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Absolutely Well, I tell you parity law and kind of
the denials, management and justthe whole world of people being
able to go to treatment and gettheir insurance and do what
they're supposed to be doing andpay for it is kind of one of my
(01:52):
big advocacy points.
I try to help families navigatethat as much as possible and do
things like set a budget forhow much they're going to pay
for recovery.
But, um, you know, I think thatthe real special part of your
story is your personal journey,um being connected to recovery
(02:16):
and the family members, and thatyou know we could.
I want to talk about thepractice and some of the things
that you're doing today, but Ialso want to, if, if you care,
to share it.
Um, I'd love for you to tell atleast a little bit about your
personal story and how itrelates to recovery.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Sure, it's a story that is married to my
professional practice.
It's why I opened my own littlelaw firm and it's why 90% of my
practice, at least, focuses onhelping families get insurance
or have mental health challenges.
My youngest died in 2016.
(03:17):
She had really profound mentalhealth issues, really profound
mental health issues anorexia,suicidiation.
She had a very, verycomplicated imaginary world that
kind of dominated a lot of heradolescence.
(03:38):
She did not die directly fromher illness.
She was living at home with usand at the age of 22, you don't
get to have any say in medicalcare.
So she was.
She had a pain in her leg thatshe went to see urgent care
(04:02):
about three times.
We didn't even know about itand it turned out to be a blood
clot that eventually got looseand entered her lungs and killed
her within seconds.
And after we died.
After she died, we found ascript for an MRI in her bedroom
(04:23):
that she never went to, shenever used.
And so that you know, your lifeflips when you lose a child.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
And certainly ours did.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It's hard it is.
You know there are.
I'm not unique in this story,but it's still a hard story.
My middle daughter is arecovering alcoholic.
Of my three kids, she's theonly one who served time.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
A lot of crying, right, you know that's true, she
, but she.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
she has completely turned her life around.
She's been sober for more thana decade.
She's married to a great guywho she met in recovery.
She is seven months pregnant.
She is a practicing lawyer herein Florida and kicking ass and
taking names.
She has really found herselfand is a huge resource for me.
(05:24):
I lean on her more than Ishould.
What is?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
her law practice.
What kind of law does she do?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
She.
I think this is prettyinteresting.
She went to the University ofMiami Law School.
She went from there and workedfor three years as a public
defender and the reason she didit is that she understood what
it was like to be on the otherside of the table behind bars
and that's.
That's a real tough jobemotionally and she left after
(05:55):
three years.
She's now doing personal injurywork for a boutique, really
high end law firm in in southernFlorida really high end law
firm in southern Florida andfinding it's really fun talking
(06:17):
to her because she is the growthcurve for her is, as it's, like
a rocket ship.
She's learning so much so fastand she's getting really good
and you can watch it and she'sseven months pregnant and just
as excited as can be.
The big debate is what I willbe called as grandfather.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Right, right, you know you have to settle that
ahead of time right, right.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
My kids loved to call me J.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Lou.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I've offered that , as maybe that's what the I
should be called as agrandfather, but no.
I.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I think that was vetoed.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Anyway, my oldest is uh uh has a 21 year drug use
problem.
Uh, she, and it's been anabsolute terror-filled roller
coaster.
It culminated a year ago.
She was kind of bumping alongdoing, okay, she is a medical
(07:14):
esthetician by trade and had herown practice.
She was living with a young manwho she met in recovery.
They both relapsed sort of inslow motion together.
He ended up dying in herapartment in their apartment,
(07:35):
july of 2023.
And you could see her spiral.
She just gave up and we thisisn't textbook parenting but we
brought her home and requiredvery little of her.
(07:55):
We'd go to meetings and help usaround the house, but until you
can figure out how to processthis grief, we are your soft
landing.
And so it's now almost exactlya year ago.
On Friday, january 5th of 2024,she said that she was going to
(08:18):
go to a meeting.
I called her at about eighto'clock on that night and she
immediately answered the phoneand said I'm in a meeting, I
can't talk.
And I said just remember, wehave some errands that we had
agreed to do together thefollowing morning.
And she said that's fine, dad,do you mind if I have pizza with
(08:39):
some of the people at themeeting afterwards?
And I said she's a 33 year oldkid, it doesn't not a kid grown
up and I that's not my job toregulate when she has pizza and
with whom.
So I said just, let's justremember that we need some.
We need to be productive thenext morning, anyway.
So she wasn't home at 10o'clock and she wasn't answering
(09:01):
her phone.
And she wasn't home at midnightand she wasn't answering her
phone.
She wasn't home at midnight andshe wasn't answering her phone.
And, given the last, theprevious seven months, both my
wife and I knew I I actuallybumped into a text message that
I sent to her that night where Isaid goodbye, um, uh.
So my wife and I got up andwalked the same walk.
(09:24):
We walked the night we lost myyoungest, the step-by-step,
because we thought we had lostmy oldest, and we were out on
the beach.
I live six blocks from thebeach, at about two 30 in the
morning, and I get a phone callfrom a number I don't know and
there's a male voice, somebody Idon't know, and asked me
(09:47):
whether I was jordan lewis, andI said yes.
And he asked whether I wasfather of alana lewis, and he I
said yes and he said I justdropped her off at the hospital.
I think she's dead.
They were, they were um, theywere giving her CPR in the
parking lot and ripping herclothes off and I have her car
and I said thank you and it wasa very as I relive that.
(10:14):
None of it surprised me.
It was horrible, but I wasexpecting the call.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Outside of yourself, watching yourself receive a
phone call right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Exactly outside of yourself, watching yourself
receive a phone call, right,exactly, yeah, exactly this.
And and wondering, praying, uh,wondering how this can possibly
be my life.
So I wasn't in a hurry to calla hospital and I I didn't for
probably 12 hours.
And when I did, the hospitalsaid that she had been in
cardiac arrest for 15 minutesminimum.
(10:47):
That's what they knew about.
They didn't know about how muchlonger before she got to the
hospital, but they knew that shewas at cardiac arrest for 15
minutes.
She was still alive.
But they told me not to come tothe hospital.
They said there's nothing foryou to see here and she won't
know you're here.
And I actually thought that wasgenerous advice, charitable
(11:12):
advice, and so we didn't go.
We the next day again this weirdfeeling that you're watching
yourself make this call.
I called the hospital and Iasked whether my daughter was
still alive and the answer wasyes.
So we as a family went and shewas in a coma.
(11:33):
She, her body temperature hadbeen reduced to 80 degrees to
preserve the organs.
She was on a respirator.
Her eyes were sometimes open,sometimes not.
Sometimes it felt like she wasmaking eye contact, but then the
eyes would slip away and thedoctor came in and he said the
most likely outcome was that shewould never breathe without
(11:55):
assistance again because shecouldn't voluntarily control her
body and if we took out theassistance she would literally
suffocate on a cough.
She couldn't expel mucus, right, would she?
want to live like that, ofcourse the answer for yeah right
so the next this is now mondaymorning.
(12:19):
by this time, my entire extendedfamily was in my kitchen and we
gathered around and and decidedthat we were going to have to
remove the respirator, and wetalked among ourselves about who
had to be there to watch her go, knowing that it could last 30
seconds or hours, maybe evenlonger, I don't know, maybe even
(12:52):
longer, I don't know.
Um, and it that was, when youtalk about sort of an
otherworldly moment.
That was the worst.
You, you having a conversationabout who needs to sit at her
side to wait her, wait for herto die, um, and uh, ultimately,
ultimately, everybody decided tobe there, uh, at least at the
start, um, so we went there tothe hospital, which is about a
(13:13):
40 minute drive, and we walkedin and Alana's head perceptibly
turned towards me and our eyesmade contact and I looked at her
and I I said do you know who Iam?
And she nodded yes, and I saiddo you know what happened?
(13:39):
And she not not to know, uh,and you could see her trying to
talk the.
The intubator is in her mouth,right.
You could see her lips tryingto form words around the
mouthpiece and the nurse iswatching this and said how about
if I take out the intubator?
And I we said, is that safe?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
and her answer was who knows.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Um, she said, go to the waiting room and I'll come
get you.
And 15 minutes later, uh, shecame and got us and uh, she said
your daughter would like totalk to you.
And at this point we're justswimming.
We can't believe.
We had already decided to puther remains next to the remains
of my youngest.
And just this amazing moment.
(14:34):
We walked in and it was likethere was a hundred pound weight
on her chest.
She could barely move and herarms were extended and her hands
were sort of clawed and herhands were.
Her arms were extended and herhands were sort of clawed, but
she was talking and she wastalking in a weird monotone high
pitched Happens when theinnovator is in the yeah.
(14:55):
But she was talking and therewas no.
You know, one of the questionsthat is is she, is she all there
mentally?
And there was no obviousdeficiency at all.
And in the course of abouteight or 10 hours on a day, when
we thought she was going to die, she came completely back to
(15:17):
the point where she got up onher own and went to the bathroom
and then came back and sat downon her bed.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It was just this, this they declared her dead,
though too right they like shewas actually declared dead.
Is that right well?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
she.
She was in cardiac arrest for15 minutes.
They didn't stop working her um.
But you know, if you're, if youand I are in cardiac arrest for
15 minutes, there's nothingleft.
And I told you sort of heroff-color joke I hope you don't
mind if I repeat it which shesaid as she was coming out of
(15:56):
this mess Is it okay?
Yeah, absolutely, please, allright.
So we're all gathered aroundher and she's trying to make and
she's emotionally a completebasket case.
She's up and she's down andshe's crying and weeping and
laughing happily and thenhysterically, which all makes
sense to me, given her past 48hours.
(16:20):
So, anyway.
So she looks at me and saidwait a minute, I was dead.
And I said yeah, for 15 minutesat least you were dead.
And she said and now I'm alive,looks like it.
And she said was I resurrected?
And I said suppose, I supposethat's what this is.
(16:43):
I said I suppose that's whatthis is.
And she said am?
I Jesus and I said no, you arenot Jesus, not sure what you are
, but that's not it.
That's not it.
Yeah.
And she said no, I'm 33, justlike Jesus, from now on, my
(17:03):
pronoun is Jesus and my middledaughter is watching this
exchange and she looks at me andshe said she's back.
And she was back, it's, it's.
(17:28):
It's still probably the mostamazing.
24 12 hours of my life to watchmy daughter literally come back
from.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
To give her up, yeah, and to bury and and bear in
your mind at least barrier, yeahand decide where and make the
plan and then turn around andwalk into the hospital.
It'd be like what is going on,yeah um I mean, I've heard this
story now this is the secondtime and I can't, like I keep
waiting for the punch line.
You know what?
(17:52):
I'm still right now.
Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
It's just a crazy story.
The the number of doctors andnurses who filed in to her room
just to see it, becauseeverybody thought she was gone.
You know, and that was sort ofvalidation for me.
This is not normal.
This is a freaking miracle thatI'm watching, and one of my
(18:18):
takeaways is that she's probablyof alien birth.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I think all parents feel that way sometimes, but you
might be onto something I don'tknow.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
So at that point, you know, I'm not just a lawyer
practicing in this area, I'm aparent living with this, and so
I know about a law in floridathat permits, uh, a judge to
(18:50):
order somebody to an involuntarytreatment, and at the beginning
of that day, I wasn't thinkingthat I needed a lawyer to to do
that.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I was you're talking about the marchman act, now the
baker, and which is just yeahplain old commitment.
But marchman is like you got tofinish, you know right uh.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So on monday morning, I didn't think I needed the
marchman act.
I thought I needed to worryabout how she was going, what
her remains were going going togo.
So, uh, the hospital ended updischarging her on wednesday,
that's two days after she cameout of the coma.
And they, they wanted todischarge her the following day.
(19:29):
They said there's nothing forher to, nothing we can do for
her now, which just seemedinsane to me.
But, um, anyway.
So we had, we had a day or twoto get a marchman act in order
and we decided this is, you know, this is a line.
Once you cross this, once youdie, everything is different.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Was she resistant even then to say no, I don't
need treatment Like you got theMarchman Act to be safe.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
But you know what was her, what was her disposition
toward treatment at that timeshe knew her disposition was
that it was going to be justlike all the 20 plus other times
she had gone to treatment.
She's an expert and she knewhow to game the system.
(20:16):
She knew the answers thatpeople wanted.
She knew that.
She knows very well thattreatment is is segmented into
30, 60, 90 days.
She felt that she could handle30.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
And that's all she needed.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Right, right, right, and we knew that we were talking
about years.
Once you die, 30 days.
I don't know that 30 days evermakes sense.
I happen to know where the 30days comes from.
It's a complete contrivance.
It has nothing to do withscience or treatment efficacy.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It was invented by insurance companies.
This is around numbers.
It's the early 90s managed care.
We're still operating withinthose timeframes to this day.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, correct, even though it makes no sense and I
think all the practitioners knowit.
But in any case, we were notinterested with a 30, 60, 90-day
model.
This obviously was differentand maybe she was in this.
She probably needed much, muchlonger term care before this
(21:34):
event.
But here we are.
So anyway, we managed.
We found a great lawyer, we gotthe Marchman Act in order.
She was discharged to asheriff's deputy on Wednesday
night, two days after she cameout of the coma, and she stroked
while she was being discharged.
Yeah, I mean to the point whereshe couldn't talk, she couldn't
(21:59):
move her arms.
In some ways she went rightback to where she had been
Sunday.
Her eyes were open.
She was obviously conscious.
She was not there, right, butshe was not there.
So she was discharged by thehospital while this was
happening, released to detox.
The detox called us the nextday and said they had brought
(22:21):
her back to the hospital.
Um, and because they saidthere's, she's not right and we
I ended up back in the er andcaused a tremendous scene
because she had been reassignedto the doctor who signed her
discharge and I thought tell meabout let's, let's spend a
minute on that, because thatstory, here's what I.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Here's.
What leads me to be in the rolethat I'm in as therapeutic
consultant is ultimately, um,and one of my favorite things to
do is to is for a hospital torealize that there's a person.
They, the hospitals, typicallyrefer to me as an advocate as
opposed to a consult.
I'm an advocate and one of myfavorite things to do is to sit
(23:10):
in a room full of doctors whenthey know an advocate is
watching and run circles aroundthem because they don't know
jack about treatment.
They know how to stabilize aperson in a hospital setting.
They know how to prescribe meds.
You know I'll give them creditfor their practice where
practice credit is due.
But outside of that, knowingabout treatment and honestly
(23:30):
just having an investment in thelonger-term outcomes for a
person's care it's not there.
They're not, and I'm nottalking about all of them, I am
talking about many, andcertainly in hospitals it's
worse than pretty much any othersetting.
But you find doctors and nursesand clinical professionals and
social workers and case managersand the whole nine yards that
(23:51):
have either very littleknowledge or very little
investment or some level of bothwith regard to a person's
long-term care outcome.
They don't know how to manageit.
They're just trying to get.
You know they need.
They got.
Beds are full.
They got to get them out thedoor and everything else and
you've got a doctor who'ssigning off on orders you know
(24:14):
the thousandth that day, I'msure, whatever right and they're
not paying attention.
And then and this is the partthat really gets me I get that
people kind of you get to a joband you can paint by numbers, a
bit like that.
That doesn't.
That makes sense to me, thatthat can happen.
But you get in front of a docand a parent is standing there,
(24:36):
right, and you're standing thereand you know your daughter, and
you know something's not right,you know something is happening
right, and they're notlistening.
They dismiss you.
You're being dismissed at thedoor and the thing that you have
to do please tell this story.
What you did.
I really want to hear.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well, relating to that if you and I were being
discharged and couldn't speakand couldn't feed ourselves, we
wouldn't have been discharged.
My oldest has told me many,many times that hospitals treat
addicts differently and I and Idismissed that I thought no way,
(25:19):
that's just.
That can't be true.
But I watched it she wasdischarged and that her nurses
knew that she was, that shecouldn't speak and that she
couldn't move her arms and thatwouldn't have happened to to you
or to me.
So when I got back to thehospital, she was on a gurney in
(25:41):
a hallway.
Nobody was.
If anybody was touching her, itwas by accident, because they
would bump into her in thehallway and I couldn't.
Yeah, by accident, because theywould bump into her in the
hallway and I couldn't right,yeah, I and I couldn't find
anybody who, who owned her, muchless, was treating her right.
Um, I and uh, I made a scene Iwould have too.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I mean, you know, come on, man.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I made a scene to the point where I had a security
guard fumbling for his taser andI looked at him and I said
unless you plan on advocatingfor my child, I'm not leaving,
I'm not leaving.
But this was, I think, an actof dumb luck or inspiration.
(26:30):
The administration building wasnext door to the ER and it was
after hours.
I didn't expect to see anybodythere, but I had to do something
.
So I stormed into theadministration building again.
Security should have stopped me, but I think they saw the that
the crazy look in my eyes andjust let me in.
And I asked, as I fly past thesecurity guard, I said where's
(26:55):
the hospital administrator?
And he said down the hall.
And then he said but he's gonefor the day.
And I said, okay, where are thelawyers?
And he said oh, they're down thehall next to him, and I said
all right.
And I said, are they there?
And he said yes, so I figuredthat's, that's a pretty good
place to start, right.
And I'm flying down thishallway and as I as I'm flying
(27:19):
down, I see a door and the doorsays chief medical officer.
And I think oh, that might be aplace to start.
And I put my hand on the doorhandle, assuming it would be
locked, but it wasn't, and Iopened the door and walk, walk
in this tiny little room nowindows, and there was a doctor
(27:40):
sitting there at his desk andlooked at me with complete
terror.
Reasonably, at that point I wasout of my mind, crazy-eyed dad
is just standing there.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
you know you might have come off the psychiatric
ward, who knows?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Right.
And I said to him you can callsecurity, but just give me two
minutes.
And as I was talking he wentonto his computer and dug her up
and looked at her vitals andlooked at at least a cursory
look at her history to see thatshe had been discharged 12 hours
earlier, at least a cursorylook at her history, to see that
(28:14):
she had been discharged 12hours earlier.
He was the first doctor to layhands on her and he had, you
know, that's not his job but hechanged the entire trajectory of
her care.
She was considered a special,given special treatment.
I was given special treatmentbecause in the first few weeks
she was, she was readmitted.
She couldn't call forassistance at night, right, and
(28:40):
she certainly couldn't get tothe bathroom without assistance.
And I watched nurses treat herpoorly.
And so I said to the doc I'mspending the night with her
every night.
And I did for a month, eight toeight, and that was against
hospital rules.
By the end of that month everysecurity officer in the building
(29:02):
knew me and knew I hadpermission, special permission,
and the fact is I helped herbecause there were times when
you know she would try to eat.
And the fact is I helped herthat because there were times
when you know she would try toeat and the food would fall out
of her hands and there was no,no, nobody was going to help her
if I wasn't there, and it's.
(29:22):
I belong to a support groupthat that focuses on parents
enabling children and and theproblems, and I'm certainly
guilty of it, but this didn'tfeel like enabling to me.
It still doesn't.
She was discharged from there.
She got proper care.
Yes, she was discharged fromthere to a hospital that
(29:47):
specializes in short-term strokerecovery.
She did great.
She was returned to detox andthis is really when Marchman
kicked in, because she assumedthat she was going to sort of
graduate from detox and thenreturn to the world.
And at this point we'reprobably 60 days beyond her
(30:08):
death and she's nowhere near Imean a million miles away ready
for for that.
So we found a and I don'tshould I give the name of the
program, Please.
There's a long term, because,because my daughter has been at
(30:30):
this so long, I am prettyfamiliar with lots of programs
because we have been customersof lots of programs.
But I had never heard ofBurning Tree, which is outside
of Dallas, Texas, and it isself-described a program for
late-term addicts, meaningaddicts who are on the verge of
death, and certainly my daughterqualified for that multiple
(30:53):
relapses and multiple treatmentexperiences and complex
behaviors and co-occurringmental health issues.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
The whole nine yards burning tree.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That's where they specialize, yeah uh and, and I
spent a week I assumed that theywould automatically admit her
because she was so obviously uh,just she so obviously fit their
profile spent a lot of time ontheir website.
Uh, and they wanted.
(31:24):
Basically, I had to qualify notjust her but but me in
particular in the family,because the the the ethos there
is is this is a family disease.
She didn't get there alone andif she's going to get better,
all of you need to get betterand you need to commit.
And I signed a contract withthem that I am honoring that
(31:49):
says I'm doing my own recovery.
I'm doing my own 12 step, whichis never really fit for me
personally, but I'm doing it andthere are things that I'm
learning and benefiting from.
And they had a.
So it was very frustratingbecause if Burning Tree didn't
(32:12):
take her, I had no idea what wasgoing to happen.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I'm going to want to put a cap on the hospital
experience a little bit.
I'll share a personal one thatI have, part of what led me to
get into this work though at thetime I did not.
I was pretty young, got hit bya car while on my bike and and
ended up in a pretty smallhospital in Virginia and the you
(32:43):
know it was anemic when I was ateenager, so my blood count was
pretty low.
So I just had an accident.
I'd gone to the hospital.
My mom drove immediately up.
My mom's a nurse and um or wasat the times and and walks into
the hospital and they're goingto do exploratory surgery
(33:03):
because they're uncertain as towhy my um blood count is so low.
And my mom walks into thehospital and I this is one of
the things just salient in mymind she just snaps the
clipboard out of the doctor'shand.
If you knew my mom, you'd knowlike that's.
That's her.
In a nutshell, it's like he'sanemic.
(33:26):
That's why stupid blood countslow.
You're gonna kill him.
Sign me out, ama, and rope mehome and I.
I recovered like I was not.
I was not as injured as theythought I might be, thank god
another miracle but literallysaved my life because she did.
She pulled kind of what youpulled.
(33:48):
You know this.
Like I work, I demandsatisfaction and I demand it
right now and I think that partof the story, that that is
beautiful about what you'retelling and something I think
that people need to hear, isthat just because you're faced,
just because you're with someonewho is a quote-unquote
professional, just becauseyou're with someone who's got
(34:09):
credentials and the doctorateand everything else, does not
mean that they know everything,that they've paid attention to
what is going on, and that youshouldn't advocate for yourself.
You need to walk in prepared toknow what is needed, to talk to
an administrator, to tell thedoctor that this is not right
(34:31):
and I want better care, and ifyou don't, then I'm going to
call my attorneys.
Do whatever you got to do toget the care that you need,
because it can go south, and itcan go south quickly, um, and
then, of course, you know.
The other thing I'd like topoint out is you know something
that people, uh, they end upfinding us and thank goodness
they do, but not everybody does.
(34:52):
You were a person who'd beenthrough treatment experiences
and you'd been through this many, many years at this point and
became aware of the field ofresidential treatment, became
aware of what qualityprogramming looked like and
found something that was aresource for you.
And thank God you know what Imean, Because so many people are
(35:15):
out there just shooting in thedark and I know that you've run
into it in your experience butthere are bad actors out there
and one of the indicators thatyou found a good actor is like
no, no, you're the parent andyou're going to be in on this
recovery process, and that is akey factor to a to a good
(35:35):
program that knows what they'redoing, that makes sure that
family involvement is there.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I've never been.
I'm I'm a veteran of at least20 different programs I have.
I have never had so muchdemanded and expected of me.
And it's correct.
As I think about it, it'sappropriate and it actually in
(36:01):
some ways is a relief because,rather than a bystander, I get
to participate, and that's Iwant to, I want to, I want to
participate, even even thoughthat my level of participation
is saying no over and over andover again.
Saying no has been hard for me,and Burning Tree correctly
(36:25):
ascertained that in my familyI'm the weak link.
They spent a lot, they had noproblems figuring that my wife
would say no and they had noproblems figuring that I would
have trouble with it.
And in fact they had what theycall a post-admission
intervention where they calledus down to Burning Tree.
(36:47):
They did not let us enter the.
It's a campus, it's a ranch.
They did not let us enter thegrounds's a campus, it's a ranch
.
They did not let us enter thegrounds.
There's a building right at thegate and she didn't know we
were there and we sat with aninterventionist who spent two
hours finding out and reallyreally pushing us about where
(37:08):
our boundaries were.
They explained that if shewalked.
It was not realistic to thinkthat she would actually
physically walk from BurningTree because it's not in the
middle of nowhere, but you cansee it from there.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
It's down a dirt road connected to it?
Yep, I know exactly what you'retalking about All right.
So she is not going tophysically walk out, but she can
demand to leave and even if youdo, it's a long walk to
anything else.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
That's not my daughter, but she could demand
to leave and after 48 hours theywould oblige her by taking her
to Dallas's toughest homelessshelter and dropping her off.
And that's got to be a prettytough homeless shelter Not that
any are not tough, but that'sgot to be really tough.
(38:00):
And so I was.
They pushed me.
What happens when you get acall from the homeless shelter
and it's your daughter and shewants $20 for dinner or an
airplane ticket home orsomething in between?
No, and do you number one?
Do you take the call Right?
(38:21):
And uh, I, I was.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I was the weak spot because I said you know after a
month in the hospital andstrokes and things like that you
know, I think I want to takethat call, right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I think my wife said she wouldn't.
Um, uh, I said I have noproblem saying that the only
only thing I would support isreturn to treatment.
Um, but I think I'd take thecall and take the call, and I
think they wanted me not to takethe call, but I said I don't
think I can do that.
And so at the end of that twohours and it's very skillfully
(39:07):
done, a guy who knows what he'sdoing they went and got her and
she didn't know we were thereand we were not even permitted
to hug her.
We hadn't seen her in monthsand not permitted to hug her.
She sat down at one end of theconference table and we sat on
the other and her instructionwas to listen to what each of us
(39:31):
had to say and to repeat itafter each one of us spoke,
which I thought was again justbrilliant, because it's
different to repeat it than justto listen.
Knowledge that you've heard.
Yeah, right, yes.
So each one of us took turnsand my middle daughter
participated over Zoom of ustook turns and my middle
(39:56):
daughter participated over Zoom.
She couldn't be there and mydaughter, my oldest accurately
repeated everything that wassaid.
And then the interventionistturned to her and said do you
commit to staying the entirelength of the program, which can
be two years?
And she said her response wasyou know, for all my life I I
(40:18):
can say something and not meanit.
And he said we know that.
Answer the question.
And she said she said I I committo staying the entire program
and and everybody, everybody inthe room, understood that's.
That's not a guarantee that shedoesn't leave that afternoon
yeah, there's a special magic tothat moment.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
I think you know there's, you read about it.
Um, you know, there's uhfiction stories and stories that
have magic in them, and storiesthat are, you know, talk about
when two people sit down andmake an agreement and there's,
you know, there's something, uh,maybe there's some ceremonious
piece by it, or they drinksomething to like, and that
(41:04):
seals the deal.
And I think that there is amoment in a person's recovery
and they they've lied to thecows, come home many, many times
, said things that didn't meanand yet there still exists
within them and in connection totheir family and the people
that they're working with thatmoment and others that follow it
that are.
(41:24):
I just said something that Imeant and it sticks.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, she's still there and over the last nine or
10 months which gives you asense of how long she's been
there, and she's got a long wayto go, but she's better.
She's better today than she was.
She has twice made some noiseabout leaving and twice
(41:54):
rescinded that noise withinabout an hour, so it was a blow
up.
Yes, and at this point it feelsshe's far enough along in the
program that we're sending hernon AA books.
She's a reader and she loves it.
She loves a good murder mystery, so we're, we're sending her
(42:18):
books.
And now I'm thinking, boy, ifshe leaves, she has to.
She has to leave the books thatshe likes so much at the
burning tree.
She's not leaving her librariesthere.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
So yeah, I think that I think that you're also
talking about.
The one of the things thatoccurs to me is you know she
almost died, she died and youknow she was like you know,
aren't the consequences?
Don't they aren't?
They don't they occur to her.
It's like no, for a person whosuffers from addiction is
(42:55):
certainly at these kind ofcomplicated and pervasive levels
, they don't observeconsequences.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
The same way everybody else does they don't.
They don't register the sameway I have a friend who has been
in recovery for 40 years and,uh, he's, he has seen it all.
And what in the way?
He helped me understand this.
He said when I, when a heroinaddict sees somebody overdose
(43:23):
and die, what they think is I'llhave, I'll take what he just
had just a tiny bit less so Iwon't die.
But I want, I want that high upto the point where it just shy
Right.
Right and my daughter certainlyunderstood.
(43:44):
She doesn't want to die.
One of the best in a 21 yearodyssey.
One of the most important bitsof information I received was, a
year into it, one of thetherapists who said to me all
acts are well-intended.
She doesn't want to hurtherself, she doesn't want to die
(44:06):
.
She is medicating herself notdoing it right, not doing it
properly, doing it dangerouslybut she is doing what she can to
try to feel better.
And that has helped meunderstand the endless number of
bad choices.
She's not trying to screw upher life.
(44:31):
She's not trying to screw upour lives.
She's not trying to drain usfinancially.
She is trying to medicate thepain.
And I also know that becauseshe started at such a young age,
she sort of that locked her inin terms of her emotional
maturity.
She's still a kid, even thoughchronologically she's not, and
(44:52):
she's got a long way to go tocatch up.
This actually sort of turns meto about 10 years ago I bumped
into the mental health parodyact.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Um, and I was going to say let's, let's get the
script a little bit and talkabout the other expression of
this recovery story that you'vegot as it lives in the world,
because I'm really interested tohear about that as well.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Well, I can't, like I said, I can't tease them apart.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
They're all it's all part of the same story.
They do, at least for me.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
So I bumped into the Mental Health Parity Act, which
I didn't know as a consumer, Ididn't know as a parent.
But I bumped into the MentalHealth Parity Act, which I
didn't know as a consumer, Ididn't know as a parent, but I
bumped into it as a lawyer and Ithought well, isn't this the
keys to the castle?
And for your viewers who don'tknow, in a nutshell, the Mental
Health Parity Act is a federallaw.
It applies to most healthinsurance plans in the same way
(45:59):
or in parity with the way theytreat insurance for medical and
surgical services.
Different rules, particularlyrules that disadvantage mental
health coverage or chemicaltreatment coverage.
You can get away with it still,but that's the law.
(46:23):
That is the law.
The problem is that the devil isalways in the details.
So, as a lawyer, the devil isalways in the details.
So, as a lawyer, you are stuckin trying to interpret it.
And the first question is well,how do you make that comparison
(46:45):
?
Because, as an example,treatment for an ankle sprain
can't possibly be compared to anRTC treatment.
Where's the comparative Right?
Right, If I've got an apple inone hand, what's the apple in
(47:08):
the other?
And the statute only gives oneexample, and that is that
residents, for example.
The statute does not mentionwilderness therapy and over the
last 10 years I've had lawyersargue wilderness therapy is not
covered by the Parity Act, whichcan't possibly be right, but
(47:41):
it's not.
The service itself is notmentioned in the statute.
The example that the statutegives is residential treatment
is comparable for purposes ofthe act to skilled nursing or
rehab hospitals and the statutesays you go having this sort of
wonderful and horribleexperience with my daughter.
(48:02):
Uh, I had a case involving aparody act and I'll give you the
Very brief background.
A kid was in an RTC in Arizona.
The RTC focused, among otherthings, on equine therapy, but
(48:23):
otherwise conventional types oftherapy individual, family,
group, things like that.
The insurer said that it did notrecognize equine therapy as an
accepted form of therapy and, asa result, it was going to deny
(48:44):
everything Room and board,individual, all of it.
And I thought about it in thecontext of the statute and I
thought about skilled nursingand I know a little bit about
skilled nursing because I've hadfamily members who needed it
(49:12):
and there are things like arttherapy or even visits to
theaters that they offer.
And I thought it would not beunreasonable for an insurance
company to say we're not payingfor art therapy, that's not
medicine.
Whatever that is, that's notmedicine.
And we don't, we don't, youdon't insure against that.
And it would be, you know,reasonable for an insurance
company to say we don't coverthat, but we cover the rest, we
(49:34):
cover the rest, right, right, wecover the room and board, we
cover the other services thatskilled nursing provides.
So if that's the one side,that's the apple on your right
hand shouldn't the apple in theleft hand, the place that offers
equine therapy, be in parity?
Speaker 1 (49:54):
We're not going to pay for the equine part, but we
pay for the rest, right?
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Right, right.
So I brought a case along witha couple of other law firms in
the Northern District of NewYork federal court and the case
ultimately was not resolved onthe merits.
But we had a series of gooddecisions to the point where the
insurance company decided weought to settle and we brought
(50:22):
this as a class case.
And it turned out there werehundreds of people in the
company database whose entirecoverage request was denied
because a component of it wasconsidered experimental.
And so it sort of fit in therough model that we had created
(50:48):
and we have tentatively settleda class case, that where, if the
judge approves it, checks willbe issued and go out to a few
hundred people.
Nobody's going to get rich offof it, but it is.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
It's a feather, it's a notch in that belt.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Well, it's more than that.
It's better than a sharp stickin the eye and for some of them,
they're going to get a decentamount of money.
We figured out a way to sort ofdo it in grades, depending upon
the service that it's almostalways a child received.
Uh, so for some they'll get adecent, decent sized check, a
(51:33):
check that will surprise them.
Um and uh.
This was all happening at thesame time.
My daughter was in this extremecrisis and I I don't mind you,
you've already sort of providedthe math for everybody I'm 67
(51:53):
and I thought I was ready to tocall it a day and, being the
sole owner of a one person lawfirm, that's pretty easy to do
Just turn off the lights andwalk away.
And I, sort of re-energized bythese two combined experiences,
(52:20):
this case result.
I've been like I said, I bumpedinto the Parity Act 10 years
ago and I've been mostlylitigating Parity Act cases
since then and it's a hardstatute and I have not.
Well, I've lost some cases andI've lost some cases and I've
won some cases, but this is byfar the best result I've had and
(52:40):
I feel like at this point I canidentify a winning theory.
In my experience.
A winning theory is not.
You should cover wildernesstherapy, because it's just like
skilled nursing, because youcover all of skilled nursing,
(53:01):
that's not a winning theory.
But if, if you, if you sort ofcut it up in the way I did with
this case and and I have to tellyou that when the case walked
in, I didn't immediatelyappreciate the theory this is
this has happened over a matterof time, in part because my
(53:24):
other theories lost.
This is this is the theory thatthat stuck Right.
Right, and I think there'ssomething there, and I think
(53:52):
that there's something therethat could be used by.
Because of what I'm living withat home and what my daughter is
going through.
The idea of helping others issort of more important to me
than it was even just a fewyears ago, and as a lawyer, you
(54:13):
get to do that.
If you're lucky, you get tohelp people occasionally.
And the idea that my practicecan.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
I want to try and give you some crisps for the
mill, as we say in the field.
My background and my master'sdegree is in outdoor ed, so I
spend some time doing work inthe field and wilderness therapy
specifically, and I'm a hugeadvocate.
I don't send a lot of clientsactually to wilderness therapy.
(54:51):
Many of my clients are toounstable to benefit from that,
at least initially.
But I had a conversation with agentleman who's the executive
director of a wilderness programthat was recently shut down,
not because of anything thathappened that was bad, but
because the company decided itdoesn't make enough money.
(55:12):
So we're closing this expressionof our you know, large equity,
decided to go with allresidential style practices and
nothing and get out of thewilderness therapy business and
that's why I closed and that'swhy many of them these days
close actually is because ofmoney.
And I said you know what if westopped telling them the context
(55:33):
of how therapy occurs?
Now I'd love to tell you thatthere's a fair number of
attorneys that I have sentmessages to talking about their
lack of qualification to assesstherapy or how it's conducted or
where it should be best placed.
So I would also say that ofcourts and judges and law firms
(55:56):
and everybody else, like youguys are not therapeutic
professionals with a few, with afew exceptions, present company
included You're not therapeuticprofessionals.
You don't know how to dotreatment, you don't talk a lot,
and I would say this is true ofinsurance companies, though
they bring doctors andtherapists in to say, hey, these
things are aren't validatedbecause they don't have a
(56:17):
document that says, or even theAPA.
The APA and I Dr Lee Gillis isa graduate professor of mine, a
friend and colleague and amentor of many years wrote his
most recent book, tried toproduce some of the results and
put it in front of the APA tohave it professionally journaled
, and they told him we can'taccept these results with regard
(56:43):
to wilderness therapy becausethey cannot be replicated in a
lab Exactly.
Exactly exactly, exactly.
And the thing I said to my, myfriend who was the executive
director.
I said you know what, if westopped worrying about where it
happened, let's stop calling itwillingness therapy and let's
(57:05):
just call it therapy, becausethe the the premise of therapy
is that there's an experiencethat you've had negative or
positive or what have you and ithas some meaning.
And it's going to and andthrough that meaning.
We're going to start talkingabout the ways in which you'd
like to better conduct your lifeand experience mental wellness.
That's.
(57:25):
That's a very broad strokeright there, but that's pretty
close to the kind of the basepremise you have experiences,
maybe they're traumatic, butthey're, um, we're going to kind
of the base premise you haveexperiences, maybe they're
traumatic, but we're going towork through some of that.
We're also going to find placesin your life where good things
have happened and we're going totry to assemble a life that can
cause you to experience mentalwellness and go about your life
(57:47):
without being interrupted bythis condition, right?
So if I'm doing that inwilderness therapy, the whole
context of experiential work,which is the premise under which
wilderness therapy is conducted, therapeutic use of wilderness
and experiential practices isthat I'm giving you an
experience that has meaning andthen we're going to process it
(58:14):
so that it's beneficial to youin this march, in this journey
that you're taking towardsemotional wellness.
And if I stop trying to make acase for the context in which
those experiences occur, youknow, in a residential program
they happen in group rooms,right, or maybe they happen in
an individual therapy insomebody's private office.
(58:34):
They might happen outside for awalk, they might happen at
night when you're having a hardtime and one of the techs comes
by.
But treatment happens not justin these small moments but over
the course of a period ofexperiences and time, and that's
the benefit and value ofresidential experiences.
Will and his therapy and, forthat matter, equine therapy and
any other practice that isdesigned to augment the
(58:56):
therapeutic experience.
If I stop worrying abouttelling them that horses are
cool and the outside is cool andwe can do these things out
there because there's value init, it's like this is therapy
and we're qualified, as peoplewho are licensed therapists, to
know what therapy is and we'requalified to work with our
clients, regardless of where wework with them.
(59:22):
There's the argument.
You and I have talked a littlebit about agencies that go out
and do advocacy toward claimsadvocacy, claims denials,
management claims advocacy andeverything else.
What they'll do, especially fora wilderness program, is
wilderness program is like look,they have this many hours of
therapy and this many hours ofgroup and this many hours of
thing.
We're going to take all thehours of that.
We're going to turn it into abill and you've got to cover
that because that coverage.
(59:43):
You say you do that coveragefor this kind of care and it's
not a lot of money a lot oftimes but it does end up
translating to a benefit thatinsurance companies are
responsible for.
Do you hear that tact when youdo these cases?
Is that kind of where you'regoing through, or does that open
(01:00:03):
a whole new kind of insight forwhat you think is the process
in doing this level of advocacyin mental health and in courts?
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Well, I do think that the term wilderness therapy is
not helpful.
I agree when it gets to judgesbecause judges hear that and
they think outward bound Right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
You just hand them outside for camping, right Right
.
Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
And and you're absolutely right you don't get
to take a judge and say let'sspend a couple of days at this
program.
Let me show you Right.
Yeah, spend a couple of days onthe trail and see if you think
the therapy is happening.
We don't get to do that.
Another thing the goal, I think, at least in terms of insurance
(01:00:51):
coverage and that is a way ofexpanding insurance coverage
opens the door to a larger groupof people who need this sort of
treatment, because otherwiseyou can't afford it.
This is $1,000 a day roughly,and it's a two or three-month
(01:01:14):
program.
Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
And I think that people hear $1,000 a day and
they're like, wow, that's reallyexpensive.
They're like, well, if you wentto the hospital, that's over
$2,000 a day.
If you're in an emergency, ifyou're in an acute care unit,
that's even more than that.
Residential care operates atthe level, at least from a
psychiatric standpoint, ofalmost hospital-level care,
(01:01:38):
because it's 24-hour supervision, there's all these things going
on.
$1,000 a day is actually not abad rate.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Except if you're well , I agree.
But the difference is thatthere's self-pay and you pay up
front.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
It's not an unfair charge for the kind of services
that you're receiving.
The problem is gettinginsurance companies to pay it so
that the larger public can haveaccess to what I would call
substantial and appropriatetherapeutic care, which they
cannot find in hospitals orcommunity services.
(01:02:13):
Stuff that's basicallyMedicaid-based.
Most of it doesn't do very well, it's not designed, it's not
staffed, it's overrun withclients and you know there's
people waiting at the door.
Anyway, there's all kinds ofproblems.
We won't go into that.
But you know this level of careand I'd love to know your
opinion about this because I was.
I was at a train, I was at aconference training, um, uh,
(01:02:36):
that was put on by Silver Hillhospital and I was talking, um,
I was talking to their CEO and Isaid look, we're all talking
about the insurance problem,right?
Um, uh.
And I said look, if insurancecompanies will learn how to just
pay for it and do that and takeit on the chin for a year or
(01:03:01):
two, you'll see fewer people andfewer claims and people getting
well and like you'll stophaving to pay.
But we got to pass through thethreshold where you start paying
for actual care because whatyou're doing is trying to dodge
it and he said it's like you'llnever get insurance companies do
(01:03:22):
that because the averagesubscriber only stays a member
for like two years.
So whatever, whatever benefitthey're trying to achieve with
this, with their subscribershipfor the members, they're not
going to see the benefit on theother side of it.
And I said, look, I hear you andthat's not a bad point, but
(01:03:44):
this person does it for thissubscriber.
In two years they becomesomebody else's subscriber, but
that person's subscriber isswitched around and they become
theirs.
And if everybody gets on boardat the same time, everybody gets
the benefit.
And I, you know, I wonder in inyour experience which, frankly,
in terms of getting claims,getting claims covered by
(01:04:07):
insurance companies and fightingfor these things is, is, is
more than mine.
What is it that you like?
What's the thing that turns thetide?
What do you think is going toturn the tide?
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
So there are a few things and I've thought about
this a lot.
If I ran the world, how would?
And I'll focus on wildernessprograms because I think they're
great I've had.
They're obviously not foreverybody, but for the right
person they're a fantasticexperience and personally I
(01:04:39):
think almost all of us should goto wilderness for a little bit
Agreed.
If I ran a wilderness programindustry, what would I do to
improve the prospects ofcoverage?
Do to improve the prospects ofcoverage?
Number one I change the namebecause there's all sorts of
(01:05:00):
biases out there and they'rereasonable, that what you're
talking about is a hike in thewoods and that may be beneficial
, but that's not medicine and wecover medicine.
We cover medical services.
I would insist that all statesthat have wilderness programs
(01:05:23):
set up a licensing system forthose programs.
There are many wildernessprograms that are in states that
are not licensed.
Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Theyially licensed, and I'll tell you why.
The reason why it's the sameproblem is that in North
Carolina and many other statesthe same problem exists, and it
is this.
It is this A wilderness programdoes not operate inside of a
building Right, and thusly itcannot be licensed as
(01:05:54):
residential.
Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
So you could insist that set up a different sort of
name nomenclature, yep, butstill, and I think wilderness
programs would be delighted tobe subject to those requirements
.
Among other things, it's a wayto have any problem meeting them
.
I don't think that's right andthey wouldn't have any.
It would be a way todifferentiate them from summer
(01:06:22):
camps, as an example.
Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Well, you know just the amount they have to do to
maintain, like you know,operating license in wilderness,
feel you know you've got to paya fee and you've got to have a
license license and wilderness,feel you know you've got to pay
a fee and you've got to have alicense, you've got to do all.
There's a ton of stuff thatthey're doing administratively
that's over and above evenresidential programs at times.
I mean, you know they're reallyhandling it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Most health insurance companies' definitions require
services provided by a licensedprovider and that disqualifies
all wilderness programs instates where there's no
licensing structure, and that'ssomething that could be fixed
(01:07:07):
and that would requiregovernmental advocacy, but
that's something that I wouldthink the industry could force
or could make happen, and itwould be to the industry's
advantage.
It wouldn't impose anyadditional burden because
(01:07:29):
they're all way above any sortof minimum licensing requirement
, but it would be a recognitionof that and I think that would
be helpful.
Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Well, so you didn't have to keep playing these
differentiated state games.
That's why Utah has so manyother programs, because it's a
different set of rules.
But I think you know you and Ihave talked about it.
I don't know if you're familiarwith these guys, but the
National Association ofTherapeutic Programs and Schools
, natsap, and the incomingpresident, derek Daly, who's the
(01:08:00):
executive director, ceo ofLegacy Outdoor out there in
Cedar City, utah, has made thisswitch.
They're doing a good job withinsurance reimbursement.
They are an experientialprogram.
They could theoretically bedubbed as wilderness because
they do a lot of great outdoorwork, but they are maintaining
(01:08:20):
these definitions.
He's also part of an initiativethey call the Golden Thread,
which is just providing outcomesdata on.
You know these are our clients,this is how they were treated
and these are the outcomes thatwe've had with them, even
long-term outcomes and trying tojoin other entities in to make
sure that they get as muchnumbers as they possibly can.
(01:08:43):
We're on the precipice of makinga good case for what you're
talking about.
You and I have talked abouthaving you guys get connected,
of course, but I think thatwe're scratching at the surface
of what you're saying and maybethat's part of it that turns the
tide From a legislativestandpoint, being the person
(01:09:04):
who's you know, knows the lawand has fought this before.
What is it in the minds ofpeople in the courts Obviously,
some definitions need to betweaked and things like that
what is it that turns themtowards understanding?
That's like hey, we're reallyserving people here.
Can't you just get on board,like, what's the message that
(01:09:24):
you think they need in order forthat tide to turn?
Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
So this sounds like a summary point and again I have.
I've been litigating this for10 years and there's a bias
against coverage for this sortof service.
And I think at the bottom isthis it's hard to justify
(01:10:00):
insurance coverage to protectsomebody from making a bad
decision or to protect somebodyfrom the consequences of a bad
decision.
And if you're outside of thisworld just look at my daughter
as a great example world justlook at my daughter as a great
example.
My daughter's made a ton of baddecisions, which has led her to
(01:10:23):
where she is today, but at thebottom of it, the thing that
animates all those bad decisionsis an illness, is an illness
that should be covered under aninsurance policy.
You don't deny coverage to adiabetic who gorges on
strawberry shortcake becausethat was a bad decision of that
diabetic.
There's an illness at thebottom of that bad decision and
(01:10:45):
that's what triggered the baddecision.
Right?
You don't deny coverage forsomebody who's got lung cancer
Because they smoked, becausethey smoked Every time they lit
up.
That was a bad decision, butthey still get treatment and
they still get coverage for thattreatment.
And I think that this bias orsort of lack of understanding
(01:11:10):
that ultimately this is anillness and not an endless
cascading series of baddecisions and it certainly is
that, but but there's somethingat the bottom of it, there's a,
there's something, there's acause that it triggers all right
, yeah well, yeah, I think Right, yeah Well, yeah, I think that,
(01:11:32):
um, I mean, I, you and I cansit here and make comparisons.
Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
like you know, we don't do this for this group.
Why are we doing it for thisgroup?
But part of that revolvesaround stigma, obviously, that
we have a oh, somebody did drugs, um, and that means they're a
bad person and I shouldn't helpbad people.
You know, honestly, there's,there's a, there's a lot of
inference there about thatMental health.
(01:11:57):
The stigma is different.
But I think people, I think thestigma revolves around people
not having a connection to it.
You know you got the baby.
You got the like the babyboomers who's like yeah, you
just, you know you handle yourproblems, you don't get help
like it's fine.
You know you got the baby.
You got the like the babyboomers.
He was like yeah, you just, youknow you handle your problems,
you don't get help Like it'sfine.
You know, if my dad was one umand the kind of like that, and
(01:12:23):
I've even seen it you know I'veseen people on a, on a you know
a social feed, where it's likeyou know this person, some event
happened and the person was hadpsychiatric issues, but they
committed some crime.
It's like this person needshelp.
It's like you just want to givethis person some therapy and
pat them on the back.
I'm like, no, no, no, you don'tunderstand.
(01:12:44):
You have no clue.
First of all, what you'retalking about.
I'm talking about residentialcare and, uh and and.
When I say residential care,I'm talking about 24 hours a day
supervision.
I'm talking about groups andtherapy sessions and everything
else.
And if you think for a second,I could go to any person who
considers themselves normal andsay here's what I'd like you to
(01:13:05):
do.
I want you to go away foranywhere from 30 to 90 days
while a team of psychiatristsdays, while a team of
psychiatrists and doctors andtherapists circle around you and
look at your greatest deficitsand examine you.
You know from from, from headto toe, and your psychiatric and
(01:13:27):
mental well-being.
And if the thought of thatdoesn't terrify you, you're an
alien, and I think there aremany people who would, and I ran
into them as adolescents.
They would much rather go tojail than they would have to
endure the dive into the reasonwhy their life is a mess and
(01:13:51):
what accountability they havefor it, into the reason why
their life is a mess, and whataccountability they have for it.
Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
That's an extremely unbelievably hard challenge to
be that honest.
Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
The stigma is that I don't want to touch it.
It makes me uncomfortable.
You know what I mean For mentalhealth.
Yeah, you know what.
Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I mean For mental health.
Yeah, I think this relates.
Maybe not, you'll tell me.
My youngest, who was mentallyill and saw all sorts of
specialists, at one point had anMRI taken of her brain and they
(01:14:36):
found what they call.
This is great.
They found what they call theUBO in her brain.
Do you know what that is?
No, an unidentified brightobject.
She thought that was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
Unidentified bright object.
Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Yeah, yeah, that they detected in her brain, uh, and,
and she said, that's, that's it, that's the cause of all of
this, and a ubo in my brain and,and maybe that's true with all
of the, the people with thisillness, maybe there's a ubo ubo
in your brain, an identifiedbright object?
Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Maybe it's an identified dark object.
I think we can go a lot ofplaces with that.
Oh my gosh, jordan, it has beena real pleasure having you on
the show today.
I really appreciate the workthat you're doing.
I certainly hope to put you infront of people and help you do
it and everything else, but Ithink it's really important.
(01:15:35):
This has been Mental HealthMatters.
I'm Todd Weatherly.
I've been with Mr Jordan Lewistoday.
Jordan, thank you for being onthe show.
Thank you very much for yourtime, todd, absolutely, take
(01:16:10):
care.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Oh, you should be lost in here.
In here, I'm a little power.
Oh, Power.
Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
Oh, you should be lost in here.
In here I'm a little power, ohPower, oh Power, oh Power, oh
Power, oh Power, oh Power, ohPower, oh Power, oh Power, oh
Power, oh Power, oh.
Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Power.
Oh, I need to find my way home.
Bye, I need to find my way home.
Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
I feel so lonely and lost in here.
I need to find my way home.
Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Find my way home.
Hello folks and welcome back to Mental Health
Matters.
I'm Todd Weatherly, your host,therapeutic consultant,
behavioral health expert, withme today.
I have a colleague and nowfriend, mr Jordan Lewis,
attorney and mental healthparity advocate with JML Law.
Jordan is a 1979, we're goingto try not to date him too bad
1979 graduate of WilliamsCollege in Williamstown, mass,
(00:25):
where he was an All-Americanswimmer.
After years in the daily newsworld, he started law school at
the University of Minnesota.
Post-graduation he worked forRobbins, kaplan Miller and
Cressy, now one of the mostsuccessful plaintiff's law firms
in the country.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
In 1992, jordan started working with a small
Minneapolis-based commercial lawfirm known as Siegel Brill and
honed his practice over the next20 years until moving to Fort
Lauderdale, florida, with hisfamily in 2012 to work with
Kelly Ustall, a preeminentplaintiff's law firm there in
Southern Florida.
This was a complete circle forJordan, leading to opening
(01:05):
Jordan Lewis PA in 2016, jml Law.
But the specialty of hispractice is what we're here to
talk about, and his personalstory connects him to the world
of recovery in an incrediblyprofound way, which I am
grateful that I got to sit andlisten to just in an intimate
lunch setting and connect withyou, jordan.
Welcome to the show and thanksfor joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thank you, todd, appreciate the introduction you
nailed it.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Absolutely Well, I tell you parity law and kind of
the denials, management and justthe whole world of people being
able to go to treatment and gettheir insurance and do what
they're supposed to be doing andpay for it is kind of one of my
(01:52):
big advocacy points.
I try to help families navigatethat as much as possible and do
things like set a budget forhow much they're going to pay
for recovery.
But, um, you know, I think thatthe real special part of your
story is your personal journey,um being connected to recovery
(02:16):
and the family members, and thatyou know we could.
I want to talk about thepractice and some of the things
that you're doing today, but Ialso want to, if, if you care,
to share it.
Um, I'd love for you to tell atleast a little bit about your
personal story and how itrelates to recovery.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Sure, it's a story that is married to my
professional practice.
It's why I opened my own littlelaw firm and it's why 90% of my
practice, at least, focuses onhelping families get insurance
or have mental health challenges.
My youngest died in 2016.
(03:17):
She had really profound mentalhealth issues, really profound
mental health issues anorexia,suicidiation.
She had a very, verycomplicated imaginary world that
kind of dominated a lot of heradolescence.
(03:38):
She did not die directly fromher illness.
She was living at home with usand at the age of 22, you don't
get to have any say in medicalcare.
So she was.
She had a pain in her leg thatshe went to see urgent care
(04:02):
about three times.
We didn't even know about itand it turned out to be a blood
clot that eventually got looseand entered her lungs and killed
her within seconds.
And after we died.
After she died, we found ascript for an MRI in her bedroom
(04:23):
that she never went to, shenever used.
And so that you know, your lifeflips when you lose a child.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
And certainly ours did.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It's hard it is.
You know there are.
I'm not unique in this story,but it's still a hard story.
My middle daughter is arecovering alcoholic.
Of my three kids, she's theonly one who served time.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
A lot of crying, right, you know that's true, she
, but she.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
she has completely turned her life around.
She's been sober for more thana decade.
She's married to a great guywho she met in recovery.
She is seven months pregnant.
She is a practicing lawyer herein Florida and kicking ass and
taking names.
She has really found herselfand is a huge resource for me.
(05:24):
I lean on her more than Ishould.
What is?
Speaker 1 (05:27):
her law practice.
What kind of law does she do?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
She.
I think this is prettyinteresting.
She went to the University ofMiami Law School.
She went from there and workedfor three years as a public
defender and the reason she didit is that she understood what
it was like to be on the otherside of the table behind bars
and that's.
That's a real tough jobemotionally and she left after
(05:55):
three years.
She's now doing personal injurywork for a boutique, really
high end law firm in in southernFlorida really high end law
firm in southern Florida andfinding it's really fun talking
(06:17):
to her because she is the growthcurve for her is, as it's, like
a rocket ship.
She's learning so much so fastand she's getting really good
and you can watch it and she'sseven months pregnant and just
as excited as can be.
The big debate is what I willbe called as grandfather.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Right, right, you know you have to settle that
ahead of time right, right.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
My kids loved to call me J.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Lou.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And I've offered that , as maybe that's what the I
should be called as agrandfather, but no.
I.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I think that was vetoed.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Anyway, my oldest is uh uh has a 21 year drug use
problem.
Uh, she, and it's been anabsolute terror-filled roller
coaster.
It culminated a year ago.
She was kind of bumping alongdoing, okay, she is a medical
(07:14):
esthetician by trade and had herown practice.
She was living with a young manwho she met in recovery.
They both relapsed sort of inslow motion together.
He ended up dying in herapartment in their apartment,
(07:35):
july of 2023.
And you could see her spiral.
She just gave up and we thisisn't textbook parenting but we
brought her home and requiredvery little of her.
(07:55):
We'd go to meetings and help usaround the house, but until you
can figure out how to processthis grief, we are your soft
landing.
And so it's now almost exactlya year ago.
On Friday, january 5th of 2024,she said that she was going to
(08:18):
go to a meeting.
I called her at about eighto'clock on that night and she
immediately answered the phoneand said I'm in a meeting, I
can't talk.
And I said just remember, wehave some errands that we had
agreed to do together thefollowing morning.
And she said that's fine, dad,do you mind if I have pizza with
(08:39):
some of the people at themeeting afterwards?
And I said she's a 33 year oldkid, it doesn't not a kid grown
up and I that's not my job toregulate when she has pizza and
with whom.
So I said just, let's justremember that we need some.
We need to be productive thenext morning, anyway.
So she wasn't home at 10o'clock and she wasn't answering
(09:01):
her phone.
And she wasn't home at midnightand she wasn't answering her
phone.
She wasn't home at midnight andshe wasn't answering her phone.
And, given the last, theprevious seven months, both my
wife and I knew I I actuallybumped into a text message that
I sent to her that night where Isaid goodbye, um, uh.
So my wife and I got up andwalked the same walk.
(09:24):
We walked the night we lost myyoungest, the step-by-step,
because we thought we had lostmy oldest, and we were out on
the beach.
I live six blocks from thebeach, at about two 30 in the
morning, and I get a phone callfrom a number I don't know and
there's a male voice, somebody Idon't know, and asked me
(09:47):
whether I was jordan lewis, andI said yes.
And he asked whether I wasfather of alana lewis, and he I
said yes and he said I justdropped her off at the hospital.
I think she's dead.
They were, they were um, theywere giving her CPR in the
parking lot and ripping herclothes off and I have her car
and I said thank you and it wasa very as I relive that.
(10:14):
None of it surprised me.
It was horrible, but I wasexpecting the call.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Outside of yourself, watching yourself receive a
phone call right.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Exactly outside of yourself, watching yourself
receive a phone call, right,exactly, yeah, exactly this.
And and wondering, praying, uh,wondering how this can possibly
be my life.
So I wasn't in a hurry to calla hospital and I I didn't for
probably 12 hours.
And when I did, the hospitalsaid that she had been in
cardiac arrest for 15 minutesminimum.
(10:47):
That's what they knew about.
They didn't know about how muchlonger before she got to the
hospital, but they knew that shewas at cardiac arrest for 15
minutes.
She was still alive.
But they told me not to come tothe hospital.
They said there's nothing foryou to see here and she won't
know you're here.
And I actually thought that wasgenerous advice, charitable
(11:12):
advice, and so we didn't go.
We the next day again this weirdfeeling that you're watching
yourself make this call.
I called the hospital and Iasked whether my daughter was
still alive and the answer wasyes.
So we as a family went and shewas in a coma.
(11:33):
She, her body temperature hadbeen reduced to 80 degrees to
preserve the organs.
She was on a respirator.
Her eyes were sometimes open,sometimes not.
Sometimes it felt like she wasmaking eye contact, but then the
eyes would slip away and thedoctor came in and he said the
most likely outcome was that shewould never breathe without
(11:55):
assistance again because shecouldn't voluntarily control her
body and if we took out theassistance she would literally
suffocate on a cough.
She couldn't expel mucus, right, would she?
want to live like that, ofcourse the answer for yeah right
so the next this is now mondaymorning.
(12:19):
by this time, my entire extendedfamily was in my kitchen and we
gathered around and and decidedthat we were going to have to
remove the respirator, and wetalked among ourselves about who
had to be there to watch her go, knowing that it could last 30
seconds or hours, maybe evenlonger, I don't know, maybe even
(12:52):
longer, I don't know.
Um, and it that was, when youtalk about sort of an
otherworldly moment.
That was the worst.
You, you having a conversationabout who needs to sit at her
side to wait her, wait for herto die, um, and uh, ultimately,
ultimately, everybody decided tobe there, uh, at least at the
start, um, so we went there tothe hospital, which is about a
(13:13):
40 minute drive, and we walkedin and Alana's head perceptibly
turned towards me and our eyesmade contact and I looked at her
and I I said do you know who Iam?
And she nodded yes, and I saiddo you know what happened?
(13:39):
And she not not to know, uh,and you could see her trying to
talk the.
The intubator is in her mouth,right.
You could see her lips tryingto form words around the
mouthpiece and the nurse iswatching this and said how about
if I take out the intubator?
And I we said, is that safe?
Speaker 1 (13:58):
and her answer was who knows.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Um, she said, go to the waiting room and I'll come
get you.
And 15 minutes later, uh, shecame and got us and uh, she said
your daughter would like totalk to you.
And at this point we're justswimming.
We can't believe.
We had already decided to puther remains next to the remains
of my youngest.
And just this amazing moment.
(14:34):
We walked in and it was likethere was a hundred pound weight
on her chest.
She could barely move and herarms were extended and her hands
were sort of clawed and herhands were.
Her arms were extended and herhands were sort of clawed, but
she was talking and she wastalking in a weird monotone high
pitched Happens when theinnovator is in the yeah.
(14:55):
But she was talking and therewas no.
You know, one of the questionsthat is is she, is she all there
mentally?
And there was no obviousdeficiency at all.
And in the course of abouteight or 10 hours on a day, when
we thought she was going to die, she came completely back to
(15:17):
the point where she got up onher own and went to the bathroom
and then came back and sat downon her bed.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It was just this, this they declared her dead,
though too right they like shewas actually declared dead.
Is that right well?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
she.
She was in cardiac arrest for15 minutes.
They didn't stop working her um.
But you know, if you're, if youand I are in cardiac arrest for
15 minutes, there's nothingleft.
And I told you sort of heroff-color joke I hope you don't
mind if I repeat it which shesaid as she was coming out of
(15:56):
this mess Is it okay?
Yeah, absolutely, please, allright.
So we're all gathered aroundher and she's trying to make and
she's emotionally a completebasket case.
She's up and she's down andshe's crying and weeping and
laughing happily and thenhysterically, which all makes
sense to me, given her past 48hours.
(16:20):
So, anyway.
So she looks at me and saidwait a minute, I was dead.
And I said yeah, for 15 minutesat least you were dead.
And she said and now I'm alive,looks like it.
And she said was I resurrected?
And I said suppose, I supposethat's what this is.
(16:43):
I said I suppose that's whatthis is.
And she said am?
I Jesus and I said no, you arenot Jesus, not sure what you are
, but that's not it.
That's not it.
Yeah.
And she said no, I'm 33, justlike Jesus, from now on, my
(17:03):
pronoun is Jesus and my middledaughter is watching this
exchange and she looks at me andshe said she's back.
And she was back, it's, it's.
(17:28):
It's still probably the mostamazing.
24 12 hours of my life to watchmy daughter literally come back
from.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
To give her up, yeah, and to bury and and bear in
your mind at least barrier, yeahand decide where and make the
plan and then turn around andwalk into the hospital.
It'd be like what is going on,yeah um I mean, I've heard this
story now this is the secondtime and I can't, like I keep
waiting for the punch line.
You know what?
(17:52):
I'm still right now.
Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
It's just a crazy story.
The the number of doctors andnurses who filed in to her room
just to see it, becauseeverybody thought she was gone.
You know, and that was sort ofvalidation for me.
This is not normal.
This is a freaking miracle thatI'm watching, and one of my
(18:18):
takeaways is that she's probablyof alien birth.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
I think all parents feel that way sometimes, but you
might be onto something I don'tknow.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
So at that point, you know, I'm not just a lawyer
practicing in this area, I'm aparent living with this, and so
I know about a law in floridathat permits, uh, a judge to
(18:50):
order somebody to an involuntarytreatment, and at the beginning
of that day, I wasn't thinkingthat I needed a lawyer to to do
that.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
I was you're talking about the marchman act, now the
baker, and which is just yeahplain old commitment.
But marchman is like you got tofinish, you know right uh.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
So on monday morning, I didn't think I needed the
marchman act.
I thought I needed to worryabout how she was going, what
her remains were going going togo.
So, uh, the hospital ended updischarging her on wednesday,
that's two days after she cameout of the coma.
And they, they wanted todischarge her the following day.
(19:29):
They said there's nothing forher to, nothing we can do for
her now, which just seemedinsane to me.
But, um, anyway.
So we had, we had a day or twoto get a marchman act in order
and we decided this is, you know, this is a line.
Once you cross this, once youdie, everything is different.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Was she resistant even then to say no, I don't
need treatment Like you got theMarchman Act to be safe.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
But you know what was her, what was her disposition
toward treatment at that timeshe knew her disposition was
that it was going to be justlike all the 20 plus other times
she had gone to treatment.
She's an expert and she knewhow to game the system.
(20:16):
She knew the answers thatpeople wanted.
She knew that.
She knows very well thattreatment is is segmented into
30, 60, 90 days.
She felt that she could handle30.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
And that's all she needed.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Right, right, right, and we knew that we were talking
about years.
Once you die, 30 days.
I don't know that 30 days evermakes sense.
I happen to know where the 30days comes from.
It's a complete contrivance.
It has nothing to do withscience or treatment efficacy.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It was invented by insurance companies.
This is around numbers.
It's the early 90s managed care.
We're still operating withinthose timeframes to this day.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, correct, even though it makes no sense and I
think all the practitioners knowit.
But in any case, we were notinterested with a 30, 60, 90-day
model.
This obviously was differentand maybe she was in this.
She probably needed much, muchlonger term care before this
(21:34):
event.
But here we are.
So anyway, we managed.
We found a great lawyer, we gotthe Marchman Act in order.
She was discharged to asheriff's deputy on Wednesday
night, two days after she cameout of the coma, and she stroked
while she was being discharged.
Yeah, I mean to the point whereshe couldn't talk, she couldn't
(21:59):
move her arms.
In some ways she went rightback to where she had been
Sunday.
Her eyes were open.
She was obviously conscious.
She was not there, right, butshe was not there.
So she was discharged by thehospital while this was
happening, released to detox.
The detox called us the nextday and said they had brought
(22:21):
her back to the hospital.
Um, and because they saidthere's, she's not right and we
I ended up back in the er andcaused a tremendous scene
because she had been reassignedto the doctor who signed her
discharge and I thought tell meabout let's, let's spend a
minute on that, because thatstory, here's what I.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Here's.
What leads me to be in the rolethat I'm in as therapeutic
consultant is ultimately, um,and one of my favorite things to
do is to is for a hospital torealize that there's a person.
They, the hospitals, typicallyrefer to me as an advocate as
opposed to a consult.
I'm an advocate and one of myfavorite things to do is to sit
(23:10):
in a room full of doctors whenthey know an advocate is
watching and run circles aroundthem because they don't know
jack about treatment.
They know how to stabilize aperson in a hospital setting.
They know how to prescribe meds.
You know I'll give them creditfor their practice where
practice credit is due.
But outside of that, knowingabout treatment and honestly
(23:30):
just having an investment in thelonger-term outcomes for a
person's care it's not there.
They're not, and I'm nottalking about all of them, I am
talking about many, andcertainly in hospitals it's
worse than pretty much any othersetting.
But you find doctors and nursesand clinical professionals and
social workers and case managersand the whole nine yards that
(23:51):
have either very littleknowledge or very little
investment or some level of bothwith regard to a person's
long-term care outcome.
They don't know how to manageit.
They're just trying to get.
You know they need.
They got.
Beds are full.
They got to get them out thedoor and everything else and
you've got a doctor who'ssigning off on orders you know
(24:14):
the thousandth that day, I'msure, whatever right and they're
not paying attention.
And then and this is the partthat really gets me I get that
people kind of you get to a joband you can paint by numbers, a
bit like that.
That doesn't.
That makes sense to me, thatthat can happen.
But you get in front of a docand a parent is standing there,
(24:36):
right, and you're standing thereand you know your daughter, and
you know something's not right,you know something is happening
right, and they're notlistening.
They dismiss you.
You're being dismissed at thedoor and the thing that you have
to do please tell this story.
What you did.
I really want to hear.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well, relating to that if you and I were being
discharged and couldn't speakand couldn't feed ourselves, we
wouldn't have been discharged.
My oldest has told me many,many times that hospitals treat
addicts differently and I and Idismissed that I thought no way,
(25:19):
that's just.
That can't be true.
But I watched it she wasdischarged and that her nurses
knew that she was, that shecouldn't speak and that she
couldn't move her arms and thatwouldn't have happened to to you
or to me.
So when I got back to thehospital, she was on a gurney in
(25:41):
a hallway.
Nobody was.
If anybody was touching her, itwas by accident, because they
would bump into her in thehallway and I couldn't.
Yeah, by accident, because theywould bump into her in the
hallway and I couldn't right,yeah, I and I couldn't find
anybody who, who owned her, muchless, was treating her right.
Um, I and uh, I made a scene Iwould have too.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I mean, you know, come on, man.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I made a scene to the point where I had a security
guard fumbling for his taser andI looked at him and I said
unless you plan on advocatingfor my child, I'm not leaving,
I'm not leaving.
But this was, I think, an actof dumb luck or inspiration.
(26:30):
The administration building wasnext door to the ER and it was
after hours.
I didn't expect to see anybodythere, but I had to do something
.
So I stormed into theadministration building again.
Security should have stopped me, but I think they saw the that
the crazy look in my eyes andjust let me in.
And I asked, as I fly past thesecurity guard, I said where's
(26:55):
the hospital administrator?
And he said down the hall.
And then he said but he's gonefor the day.
And I said, okay, where are thelawyers?
And he said oh, they're down thehall next to him, and I said
all right.
And I said, are they there?
And he said yes, so I figuredthat's, that's a pretty good
place to start, right.
And I'm flying down thishallway and as I as I'm flying
(27:19):
down, I see a door and the doorsays chief medical officer.
And I think oh, that might be aplace to start.
And I put my hand on the doorhandle, assuming it would be
locked, but it wasn't, and Iopened the door and walk, walk
in this tiny little room nowindows, and there was a doctor
(27:40):
sitting there at his desk andlooked at me with complete
terror.
Reasonably, at that point I wasout of my mind, crazy-eyed dad
is just standing there.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
you know you might have come off the psychiatric
ward, who knows?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Right.
And I said to him you can callsecurity, but just give me two
minutes.
And as I was talking he wentonto his computer and dug her up
and looked at her vitals andlooked at at least a cursory
look at her history to see thatshe had been discharged 12 hours
earlier, at least a cursorylook at her history, to see that
(28:14):
she had been discharged 12hours earlier.
He was the first doctor to layhands on her and he had, you
know, that's not his job but hechanged the entire trajectory of
her care.
She was considered a special,given special treatment.
I was given special treatmentbecause in the first few weeks
she was, she was readmitted.
She couldn't call forassistance at night, right, and
(28:40):
she certainly couldn't get tothe bathroom without assistance.
And I watched nurses treat herpoorly.
And so I said to the doc I'mspending the night with her
every night.
And I did for a month, eight toeight, and that was against
hospital rules.
By the end of that month everysecurity officer in the building
(29:02):
knew me and knew I hadpermission, special permission,
and the fact is I helped herbecause there were times when
you know she would try to eat.
And the fact is I helped herthat because there were times
when you know she would try toeat and the food would fall out
of her hands and there was no,no, nobody was going to help her
if I wasn't there, and it's.
(29:22):
I belong to a support groupthat that focuses on parents
enabling children and and theproblems, and I'm certainly
guilty of it, but this didn'tfeel like enabling to me.
It still doesn't.
She was discharged from there.
She got proper care.
Yes, she was discharged fromthere to a hospital that
(29:47):
specializes in short-term strokerecovery.
She did great.
She was returned to detox andthis is really when Marchman
kicked in, because she assumedthat she was going to sort of
graduate from detox and thenreturn to the world.
And at this point we'reprobably 60 days beyond her
(30:08):
death and she's nowhere near Imean a million miles away ready
for for that.
So we found a and I don'tshould I give the name of the
program, Please.
There's a long term, because,because my daughter has been at
(30:30):
this so long, I am prettyfamiliar with lots of programs
because we have been customersof lots of programs.
But I had never heard ofBurning Tree, which is outside
of Dallas, Texas, and it isself-described a program for
late-term addicts, meaningaddicts who are on the verge of
death, and certainly my daughterqualified for that multiple
(30:53):
relapses and multiple treatmentexperiences and complex
behaviors and co-occurringmental health issues.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
The whole nine yards burning tree.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That's where they specialize, yeah uh and, and I
spent a week I assumed that theywould automatically admit her
because she was so obviously uh,just she so obviously fit their
profile spent a lot of time ontheir website.
Uh, and they wanted.
(31:24):
Basically, I had to qualify notjust her but but me in
particular in the family,because the the the ethos there
is is this is a family disease.
She didn't get there alone andif she's going to get better,
all of you need to get betterand you need to commit.
And I signed a contract withthem that I am honoring that
(31:49):
says I'm doing my own recovery.
I'm doing my own 12 step, whichis never really fit for me
personally, but I'm doing it andthere are things that I'm
learning and benefiting from.
And they had a.
So it was very frustratingbecause if Burning Tree didn't
(32:12):
take her, I had no idea what wasgoing to happen.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I'm going to want to put a cap on the hospital
experience a little bit.
I'll share a personal one thatI have, part of what led me to
get into this work though at thetime I did not.
I was pretty young, got hit bya car while on my bike and and
ended up in a pretty smallhospital in Virginia and the you
(32:43):
know it was anemic when I was ateenager, so my blood count was
pretty low.
So I just had an accident.
I'd gone to the hospital.
My mom drove immediately up.
My mom's a nurse and um or wasat the times and and walks into
the hospital and they're goingto do exploratory surgery
(33:03):
because they're uncertain as towhy my um blood count is so low.
And my mom walks into thehospital and I this is one of
the things just salient in mymind she just snaps the
clipboard out of the doctor'shand.
If you knew my mom, you'd knowlike that's.
That's her.
In a nutshell, it's like he'sanemic.
(33:26):
That's why stupid blood countslow.
You're gonna kill him.
Sign me out, ama, and rope mehome and I.
I recovered like I was not.
I was not as injured as theythought I might be, thank god
another miracle but literallysaved my life because she did.
She pulled kind of what youpulled.
(33:48):
You know this.
Like I work, I demandsatisfaction and I demand it
right now and I think that partof the story, that that is
beautiful about what you'retelling and something I think
that people need to hear, isthat just because you're faced,
just because you're with someonewho is a quote-unquote
professional, just becauseyou're with someone who's got
(34:09):
credentials and the doctorateand everything else, does not
mean that they know everything,that they've paid attention to
what is going on, and that youshouldn't advocate for yourself.
You need to walk in prepared toknow what is needed, to talk to
an administrator, to tell thedoctor that this is not right
(34:31):
and I want better care, and ifyou don't, then I'm going to
call my attorneys.
Do whatever you got to do toget the care that you need,
because it can go south, and itcan go south quickly, um, and
then, of course, you know.
The other thing I'd like topoint out is you know something
that people, uh, they end upfinding us and thank goodness
they do, but not everybody does.
(34:52):
You were a person who'd beenthrough treatment experiences
and you'd been through this many, many years at this point and
became aware of the field ofresidential treatment, became
aware of what qualityprogramming looked like and
found something that was aresource for you.
And thank God you know what Imean, Because so many people are
(35:15):
out there just shooting in thedark and I know that you've run
into it in your experience butthere are bad actors out there
and one of the indicators thatyou found a good actor is like
no, no, you're the parent andyou're going to be in on this
recovery process, and that is akey factor to a to a good
(35:35):
program that knows what they'redoing, that makes sure that
family involvement is there.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I've never been.
I'm I'm a veteran of at least20 different programs I have.
I have never had so muchdemanded and expected of me.
And it's correct.
As I think about it, it'sappropriate and it actually in
(36:01):
some ways is a relief because,rather than a bystander, I get
to participate, and that's Iwant to, I want to, I want to
participate, even even thoughthat my level of participation
is saying no over and over andover again.
Saying no has been hard for me,and Burning Tree correctly
(36:25):
ascertained that in my familyI'm the weak link.
They spent a lot, they had noproblems figuring that my wife
would say no and they had noproblems figuring that I would
have trouble with it.
And in fact they had what theycall a post-admission
intervention where they calledus down to Burning Tree.
(36:47):
They did not let us enter the.
It's a campus, it's a ranch.
They did not let us enter thegrounds's a campus, it's a ranch
.
They did not let us enter thegrounds.
There's a building right at thegate and she didn't know we
were there and we sat with aninterventionist who spent two
hours finding out and reallyreally pushing us about where
(37:08):
our boundaries were.
They explained that if shewalked.
It was not realistic to thinkthat she would actually
physically walk from BurningTree because it's not in the
middle of nowhere, but you cansee it from there.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
It's down a dirt road connected to it?
Yep, I know exactly what you'retalking about All right.
So she is not going tophysically walk out, but she can
demand to leave and even if youdo, it's a long walk to
anything else.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
That's not my daughter, but she could demand
to leave and after 48 hours theywould oblige her by taking her
to Dallas's toughest homelessshelter and dropping her off.
And that's got to be a prettytough homeless shelter Not that
any are not tough, but that'sgot to be really tough.
(38:00):
And so I was.
They pushed me.
What happens when you get acall from the homeless shelter
and it's your daughter and shewants $20 for dinner or an
airplane ticket home orsomething in between?
No, and do you number one?
Do you take the call Right?
(38:21):
And uh, I, I was.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I was the weak spot because I said you know after a
month in the hospital andstrokes and things like that you
know, I think I want to takethat call, right, exactly.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Yeah, I think my wife said she wouldn't.
Um, uh, I said I have noproblem saying that the only
only thing I would support isreturn to treatment.
Um, but I think I'd take thecall and take the call, and I
think they wanted me not to takethe call, but I said I don't
think I can do that.
And so at the end of that twohours and it's very skillfully
(39:07):
done, a guy who knows what he'sdoing they went and got her and
she didn't know we were thereand we were not even permitted
to hug her.
We hadn't seen her in monthsand not permitted to hug her.
She sat down at one end of theconference table and we sat on
the other and her instructionwas to listen to what each of us
(39:31):
had to say and to repeat itafter each one of us spoke,
which I thought was again justbrilliant, because it's
different to repeat it than justto listen.
Knowledge that you've heard.
Yeah, right, yes.
So each one of us took turnsand my middle daughter
participated over Zoom of ustook turns and my middle
(39:56):
daughter participated over Zoom.
She couldn't be there and mydaughter, my oldest accurately
repeated everything that wassaid.
And then the interventionistturned to her and said do you
commit to staying the entirelength of the program, which can
be two years?
And she said her response wasyou know, for all my life I I
(40:18):
can say something and not meanit.
And he said we know that.
Answer the question.
And she said she said I I committo staying the entire program
and and everybody, everybody inthe room, understood that's.
That's not a guarantee that shedoesn't leave that afternoon
yeah, there's a special magic tothat moment.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
I think you know there's, you read about it.
Um, you know, there's uhfiction stories and stories that
have magic in them, and storiesthat are, you know, talk about
when two people sit down andmake an agreement and there's,
you know, there's something, uh,maybe there's some ceremonious
piece by it, or they drinksomething to like, and that
(41:04):
seals the deal.
And I think that there is amoment in a person's recovery
and they they've lied to thecows, come home many, many times
, said things that didn't meanand yet there still exists
within them and in connection totheir family and the people
that they're working with thatmoment and others that follow it
that are.
(41:24):
I just said something that Imeant and it sticks.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
Well, she's still there and over the last nine or
10 months which gives you asense of how long she's been
there, and she's got a long wayto go, but she's better.
She's better today than she was.
She has twice made some noiseabout leaving and twice
(41:54):
rescinded that noise withinabout an hour, so it was a blow
up.
Yes, and at this point it feelsshe's far enough along in the
program that we're sending hernon AA books.
She's a reader and she loves it.
She loves a good murder mystery, so we're, we're sending her
(42:18):
books.
And now I'm thinking, boy, ifshe leaves, she has to.
She has to leave the books thatshe likes so much at the
burning tree.
She's not leaving her librariesthere.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
So yeah, I think that I think that you're also
talking about.
The one of the things thatoccurs to me is you know she
almost died, she died and youknow she was like you know,
aren't the consequences?
Don't they aren't?
They don't they occur to her.
It's like no, for a person whosuffers from addiction is
(42:55):
certainly at these kind ofcomplicated and pervasive levels
, they don't observeconsequences.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
The same way everybody else does they don't.
They don't register the sameway I have a friend who has been
in recovery for 40 years and,uh, he's, he has seen it all.
And what in the way?
He helped me understand this.
He said when I, when a heroinaddict sees somebody overdose
(43:23):
and die, what they think is I'llhave, I'll take what he just
had just a tiny bit less so Iwon't die.
But I want, I want that high upto the point where it just shy
Right.
Right and my daughter certainlyunderstood.
(43:44):
She doesn't want to die.
One of the best in a 21 yearodyssey.
One of the most important bitsof information I received was, a
year into it, one of thetherapists who said to me all
acts are well-intended.
She doesn't want to hurtherself, she doesn't want to die
(44:06):
.
She is medicating herself notdoing it right, not doing it
properly, doing it dangerouslybut she is doing what she can to
try to feel better.
And that has helped meunderstand the endless number of
bad choices.
She's not trying to screw upher life.
(44:31):
She's not trying to screw upour lives.
She's not trying to drain usfinancially.
She is trying to medicate thepain.
And I also know that becauseshe started at such a young age,
she sort of that locked her inin terms of her emotional
maturity.
She's still a kid, even thoughchronologically she's not, and
(44:52):
she's got a long way to go tocatch up.
This actually sort of turns meto about 10 years ago I bumped
into the mental health parodyact.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Um, and I was going to say let's, let's get the
script a little bit and talkabout the other expression of
this recovery story that you'vegot as it lives in the world,
because I'm really interested tohear about that as well.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Well, I can't, like I said, I can't tease them apart.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
They're all it's all part of the same story.
They do, at least for me.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
So I bumped into the Mental Health Parity Act, which
I didn't know as a consumer, Ididn't know as a parent.
But I bumped into the MentalHealth Parity Act, which I
didn't know as a consumer, Ididn't know as a parent, but I
bumped into it as a lawyer and Ithought well, isn't this the
keys to the castle?
And for your viewers who don'tknow, in a nutshell, the Mental
Health Parity Act is a federallaw.
It applies to most healthinsurance plans in the same way
(45:59):
or in parity with the way theytreat insurance for medical and
surgical services.
Different rules, particularlyrules that disadvantage mental
health coverage or chemicaltreatment coverage.
You can get away with it still,but that's the law.
(46:23):
That is the law.
The problem is that the devil isalways in the details.
So, as a lawyer, the devil isalways in the details.
So, as a lawyer, you are stuckin trying to interpret it.
And the first question is well,how do you make that comparison
(46:45):
?
Because, as an example,treatment for an ankle sprain
can't possibly be compared to anRTC treatment.
Where's the comparative Right?
Right, If I've got an apple inone hand, what's the apple in
(47:08):
the other?
And the statute only gives oneexample, and that is that
residents, for example.
The statute does not mentionwilderness therapy and over the
last 10 years I've had lawyersargue wilderness therapy is not
covered by the Parity Act, whichcan't possibly be right, but
(47:41):
it's not.
The service itself is notmentioned in the statute.
The example that the statutegives is residential treatment
is comparable for purposes ofthe act to skilled nursing or
rehab hospitals and the statutesays you go having this sort of
wonderful and horribleexperience with my daughter.
(48:02):
Uh, I had a case involving aparody act and I'll give you the
Very brief background.
A kid was in an RTC in Arizona.
The RTC focused, among otherthings, on equine therapy, but
(48:23):
otherwise conventional types oftherapy individual, family,
group, things like that.
The insurer said that it did notrecognize equine therapy as an
accepted form of therapy and, asa result, it was going to deny
(48:44):
everything Room and board,individual, all of it.
And I thought about it in thecontext of the statute and I
thought about skilled nursingand I know a little bit about
skilled nursing because I've hadfamily members who needed it
(49:12):
and there are things like arttherapy or even visits to
theaters that they offer.
And I thought it would not beunreasonable for an insurance
company to say we're not payingfor art therapy, that's not
medicine.
Whatever that is, that's notmedicine.
And we don't, we don't, youdon't insure against that.
And it would be, you know,reasonable for an insurance
company to say we don't coverthat, but we cover the rest, we
(49:34):
cover the rest, right, right, wecover the room and board, we
cover the other services thatskilled nursing provides.
So if that's the one side,that's the apple on your right
hand shouldn't the apple in theleft hand, the place that offers
equine therapy, be in parity?
Speaker 1 (49:54):
We're not going to pay for the equine part, but we
pay for the rest, right?
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Right, right.
So I brought a case along witha couple of other law firms in
the Northern District of NewYork federal court and the case
ultimately was not resolved onthe merits.
But we had a series of gooddecisions to the point where the
insurance company decided weought to settle and we brought
(50:22):
this as a class case.
And it turned out there werehundreds of people in the
company database whose entirecoverage request was denied
because a component of it wasconsidered experimental.
And so it sort of fit in therough model that we had created
(50:48):
and we have tentatively settleda class case, that where, if the
judge approves it, checks willbe issued and go out to a few
hundred people.
Nobody's going to get rich offof it, but it is.
Speaker 1 (51:07):
It's a feather, it's a notch in that belt.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Well, it's more than that.
It's better than a sharp stickin the eye and for some of them,
they're going to get a decentamount of money.
We figured out a way to sort ofdo it in grades, depending upon
the service that it's almostalways a child received.
Uh, so for some they'll get adecent, decent sized check, a
(51:33):
check that will surprise them.
Um and uh.
This was all happening at thesame time.
My daughter was in this extremecrisis and I I don't mind you,
you've already sort of providedthe math for everybody I'm 67
(51:53):
and I thought I was ready to tocall it a day and, being the
sole owner of a one person lawfirm, that's pretty easy to do
Just turn off the lights andwalk away.
And I, sort of re-energized bythese two combined experiences,
(52:20):
this case result.
I've been like I said, I bumpedinto the Parity Act 10 years
ago and I've been mostlylitigating Parity Act cases
since then and it's a hardstatute and I have not.
Well, I've lost some cases andI've lost some cases and I've
won some cases, but this is byfar the best result I've had and
(52:40):
I feel like at this point I canidentify a winning theory.
In my experience.
A winning theory is not.
You should cover wildernesstherapy, because it's just like
skilled nursing, because youcover all of skilled nursing,
(53:01):
that's not a winning theory.
But if, if you, if you sort ofcut it up in the way I did with
this case and and I have to tellyou that when the case walked
in, I didn't immediatelyappreciate the theory this is
this has happened over a matterof time, in part because my
(53:24):
other theories lost.
This is this is the theory thatthat stuck Right.
Right, and I think there'ssomething there, and I think
(53:52):
that there's something therethat could be used by.
Because of what I'm living withat home and what my daughter is
going through.
The idea of helping others issort of more important to me
than it was even just a fewyears ago, and as a lawyer, you
(54:13):
get to do that.
If you're lucky, you get tohelp people occasionally.
And the idea that my practicecan.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
I want to try and give you some crisps for the
mill, as we say in the field.
My background and my master'sdegree is in outdoor ed, so I
spend some time doing work inthe field and wilderness therapy
specifically, and I'm a hugeadvocate.
I don't send a lot of clientsactually to wilderness therapy.
(54:51):
Many of my clients are toounstable to benefit from that,
at least initially.
But I had a conversation with agentleman who's the executive
director of a wilderness programthat was recently shut down,
not because of anything thathappened that was bad, but
because the company decided itdoesn't make enough money.
(55:12):
So we're closing this expressionof our you know, large equity,
decided to go with allresidential style practices and
nothing and get out of thewilderness therapy business and
that's why I closed and that'swhy many of them these days
close actually is because ofmoney.
And I said you know what if westopped telling them the context
(55:33):
of how therapy occurs?
Now I'd love to tell you thatthere's a fair number of
attorneys that I have sentmessages to talking about their
lack of qualification to assesstherapy or how it's conducted or
where it should be best placed.
So I would also say that ofcourts and judges and law firms
(55:56):
and everybody else, like youguys are not therapeutic
professionals with a few, with afew exceptions, present company
included You're not therapeuticprofessionals.
You don't know how to dotreatment, you don't talk a lot,
and I would say this is true ofinsurance companies, though
they bring doctors andtherapists in to say, hey, these
things are aren't validatedbecause they don't have a
(56:17):
document that says, or even theAPA.
The APA and I Dr Lee Gillis isa graduate professor of mine, a
friend and colleague and amentor of many years wrote his
most recent book, tried toproduce some of the results and
put it in front of the APA tohave it professionally journaled
, and they told him we can'taccept these results with regard
(56:43):
to wilderness therapy becausethey cannot be replicated in a
lab Exactly.
Exactly exactly, exactly.
And the thing I said to my, myfriend who was the executive
director.
I said you know what, if westopped worrying about where it
happened, let's stop calling itwillingness therapy and let's
(57:05):
just call it therapy, becausethe the the premise of therapy
is that there's an experiencethat you've had negative or
positive or what have you and ithas some meaning.
And it's going to and andthrough that meaning.
We're going to start talkingabout the ways in which you'd
like to better conduct your lifeand experience mental wellness.
That's.
(57:25):
That's a very broad strokeright there, but that's pretty
close to the kind of the basepremise you have experiences,
maybe they're traumatic, butthey're, um, we're going to kind
of the base premise you haveexperiences, maybe they're
traumatic, but we're going towork through some of that.
We're also going to find placesin your life where good things
have happened and we're going totry to assemble a life that can
cause you to experience mentalwellness and go about your life
(57:47):
without being interrupted bythis condition, right?
So if I'm doing that inwilderness therapy, the whole
context of experiential work,which is the premise under which
wilderness therapy is conducted, therapeutic use of wilderness
and experiential practices isthat I'm giving you an
experience that has meaning andthen we're going to process it
(58:14):
so that it's beneficial to youin this march, in this journey
that you're taking towardsemotional wellness.
And if I stop trying to make acase for the context in which
those experiences occur, youknow, in a residential program
they happen in group rooms,right, or maybe they happen in
an individual therapy insomebody's private office.
(58:34):
They might happen outside for awalk, they might happen at
night when you're having a hardtime and one of the techs comes
by.
But treatment happens not justin these small moments but over
the course of a period ofexperiences and time, and that's
the benefit and value ofresidential experiences.
Will and his therapy and, forthat matter, equine therapy and
any other practice that isdesigned to augment the
(58:56):
therapeutic experience.
If I stop worrying abouttelling them that horses are
cool and the outside is cool andwe can do these things out
there because there's value init, it's like this is therapy
and we're qualified, as peoplewho are licensed therapists, to
know what therapy is and we'requalified to work with our
clients, regardless of where wework with them.
(59:22):
There's the argument.
You and I have talked a littlebit about agencies that go out
and do advocacy toward claimsadvocacy, claims denials,
management claims advocacy andeverything else.
What they'll do, especially fora wilderness program, is
wilderness program is like look,they have this many hours of
therapy and this many hours ofgroup and this many hours of
thing.
We're going to take all thehours of that.
We're going to turn it into abill and you've got to cover
that because that coverage.
(59:43):
You say you do that coveragefor this kind of care and it's
not a lot of money a lot oftimes but it does end up
translating to a benefit thatinsurance companies are
responsible for.
Do you hear that tact when youdo these cases?
Is that kind of where you'regoing through, or does that open
(01:00:03):
a whole new kind of insight forwhat you think is the process
in doing this level of advocacyin mental health and in courts?
Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Well, I do think that the term wilderness therapy is
not helpful.
I agree when it gets to judgesbecause judges hear that and
they think outward bound Right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
You just hand them outside for camping, right Right
.
Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
And and you're absolutely right you don't get
to take a judge and say let'sspend a couple of days at this
program.
Let me show you Right.
Yeah, spend a couple of days onthe trail and see if you think
the therapy is happening.
We don't get to do that.
Another thing the goal, I think, at least in terms of insurance
(01:00:51):
coverage and that is a way ofexpanding insurance coverage
opens the door to a larger groupof people who need this sort of
treatment, because otherwiseyou can't afford it.
This is $1,000 a day roughly,and it's a two or three-month
(01:01:14):
program.
Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
And I think that people hear $1,000 a day and
they're like, wow, that's reallyexpensive.
They're like, well, if you wentto the hospital, that's over
$2,000 a day.
If you're in an emergency, ifyou're in an acute care unit,
that's even more than that.
Residential care operates atthe level, at least from a
psychiatric standpoint, ofalmost hospital-level care,
(01:01:38):
because it's 24-hour supervision, there's all these things going
on.
$1,000 a day is actually not abad rate.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
Except if you're well , I agree.
But the difference is thatthere's self-pay and you pay up
front.
Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
It's not an unfair charge for the kind of services
that you're receiving.
The problem is gettinginsurance companies to pay it so
that the larger public can haveaccess to what I would call
substantial and appropriatetherapeutic care, which they
cannot find in hospitals orcommunity services.
(01:02:13):
Stuff that's basicallyMedicaid-based.
Most of it doesn't do very well, it's not designed, it's not
staffed, it's overrun withclients and you know there's
people waiting at the door.
Anyway, there's all kinds ofproblems.
We won't go into that.
But you know this level of careand I'd love to know your
opinion about this because I was.
I was at a train, I was at aconference training, um, uh,
(01:02:36):
that was put on by Silver Hillhospital and I was talking, um,
I was talking to their CEO and Isaid look, we're all talking
about the insurance problem,right?
Um, uh.
And I said look, if insurancecompanies will learn how to just
pay for it and do that and takeit on the chin for a year or
(01:03:01):
two, you'll see fewer people andfewer claims and people getting
well and like you'll stophaving to pay.
But we got to pass through thethreshold where you start paying
for actual care because whatyou're doing is trying to dodge
it and he said it's like you'llnever get insurance companies do
(01:03:22):
that because the averagesubscriber only stays a member
for like two years.
So whatever, whatever benefitthey're trying to achieve with
this, with their subscribershipfor the members, they're not
going to see the benefit on theother side of it.
And I said, look, I hear you andthat's not a bad point, but
(01:03:44):
this person does it for thissubscriber.
In two years they becomesomebody else's subscriber, but
that person's subscriber isswitched around and they become
theirs.
And if everybody gets on boardat the same time, everybody gets
the benefit.
And I, you know, I wonder in inyour experience which, frankly,
in terms of getting claims,getting claims covered by
(01:04:07):
insurance companies and fightingfor these things is, is, is
more than mine.
What is it that you like?
What's the thing that turns thetide?
What do you think is going toturn the tide?
Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
So there are a few things and I've thought about
this a lot.
If I ran the world, how would?
And I'll focus on wildernessprograms because I think they're
great I've had.
They're obviously not foreverybody, but for the right
person they're a fantasticexperience and personally I
(01:04:39):
think almost all of us should goto wilderness for a little bit
Agreed.
If I ran a wilderness programindustry, what would I do to
improve the prospects ofcoverage?
Do to improve the prospects ofcoverage?
Number one I change the namebecause there's all sorts of
(01:05:00):
biases out there and they'rereasonable, that what you're
talking about is a hike in thewoods and that may be beneficial
, but that's not medicine and wecover medicine.
We cover medical services.
I would insist that all statesthat have wilderness programs
(01:05:23):
set up a licensing system forthose programs.
There are many wildernessprograms that are in states that
are not licensed.
Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
Theyially licensed, and I'll tell you why.
The reason why it's the sameproblem is that in North
Carolina and many other statesthe same problem exists, and it
is this.
It is this A wilderness programdoes not operate inside of a
building Right, and thusly itcannot be licensed as
(01:05:54):
residential.
Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
So you could insist that set up a different sort of
name nomenclature, yep, butstill, and I think wilderness
programs would be delighted tobe subject to those requirements
.
Among other things, it's a wayto have any problem meeting them
.
I don't think that's right andthey wouldn't have any.
It would be a way todifferentiate them from summer
(01:06:22):
camps, as an example.
Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
Well, you know just the amount they have to do to
maintain, like you know,operating license in wilderness,
feel you know you've got to paya fee and you've got to have a
license license and wilderness,feel you know you've got to pay
a fee and you've got to have alicense, you've got to do all.
There's a ton of stuff thatthey're doing administratively
that's over and above evenresidential programs at times.
I mean, you know they're reallyhandling it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Most health insurance companies' definitions require
services provided by a licensedprovider and that disqualifies
all wilderness programs instates where there's no
licensing structure, and that'ssomething that could be fixed
(01:07:07):
and that would requiregovernmental advocacy, but
that's something that I wouldthink the industry could force
or could make happen, and itwould be to the industry's
advantage.
It wouldn't impose anyadditional burden because
(01:07:29):
they're all way above any sortof minimum licensing requirement
, but it would be a recognitionof that and I think that would
be helpful.
Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Well, so you didn't have to keep playing these
differentiated state games.
That's why Utah has so manyother programs, because it's a
different set of rules.
But I think you know you and Ihave talked about it.
I don't know if you're familiarwith these guys, but the
National Association ofTherapeutic Programs and Schools
, natsap, and the incomingpresident, derek Daly, who's the
(01:08:00):
executive director, ceo ofLegacy Outdoor out there in
Cedar City, utah, has made thisswitch.
They're doing a good job withinsurance reimbursement.
They are an experientialprogram.
They could theoretically bedubbed as wilderness because
they do a lot of great outdoorwork, but they are maintaining
(01:08:20):
these definitions.
He's also part of an initiativethey call the Golden Thread,
which is just providing outcomesdata on.
You know these are our clients,this is how they were treated
and these are the outcomes thatwe've had with them, even
long-term outcomes and trying tojoin other entities in to make
sure that they get as muchnumbers as they possibly can.
(01:08:43):
We're on the precipice of makinga good case for what you're
talking about.
You and I have talked abouthaving you guys get connected,
of course, but I think thatwe're scratching at the surface
of what you're saying and maybethat's part of it that turns the
tide From a legislativestandpoint, being the person
(01:09:04):
who's you know, knows the lawand has fought this before.
What is it in the minds ofpeople in the courts Obviously,
some definitions need to betweaked and things like that
what is it that turns themtowards understanding?
That's like hey, we're reallyserving people here.
Can't you just get on board,like, what's the message that
(01:09:24):
you think they need in order forthat tide to turn?
Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
So this sounds like a summary point and again I have.
I've been litigating this for10 years and there's a bias
against coverage for this sortof service.
And I think at the bottom isthis it's hard to justify
(01:10:00):
insurance coverage to protectsomebody from making a bad
decision or to protect somebodyfrom the consequences of a bad
decision.
And if you're outside of thisworld just look at my daughter
as a great example world justlook at my daughter as a great
example.
My daughter's made a ton of baddecisions, which has led her to
(01:10:23):
where she is today, but at thebottom of it, the thing that
animates all those bad decisionsis an illness, is an illness
that should be covered under aninsurance policy.
You don't deny coverage to adiabetic who gorges on
strawberry shortcake becausethat was a bad decision of that
diabetic.
There's an illness at thebottom of that bad decision and
(01:10:45):
that's what triggered the baddecision.
Right?
You don't deny coverage forsomebody who's got lung cancer
Because they smoked, becausethey smoked Every time they lit
up.
That was a bad decision, butthey still get treatment and
they still get coverage for thattreatment.
And I think that this bias orsort of lack of understanding
(01:11:10):
that ultimately this is anillness and not an endless
cascading series of baddecisions and it certainly is
that, but but there's somethingat the bottom of it, there's a,
there's something, there's acause that it triggers all right
, yeah well, yeah, I think Right, yeah Well, yeah, I think that,
(01:11:32):
um, I mean, I, you and I cansit here and make comparisons.
Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
like you know, we don't do this for this group.
Why are we doing it for thisgroup?
But part of that revolvesaround stigma, obviously, that
we have a oh, somebody did drugs, um, and that means they're a
bad person and I shouldn't helpbad people.
You know, honestly, there's,there's a, there's a lot of
inference there about thatMental health.
(01:11:57):
The stigma is different.
But I think people, I think thestigma revolves around people
not having a connection to it.
You know you got the baby.
You got the like the babyboomers who's like yeah, you
just, you know you handle yourproblems, you don't get help
like it's fine.
You know you got the baby.
You got the like the babyboomers.
He was like yeah, you just, youknow you handle your problems,
you don't get help Like it'sfine.
You know, if my dad was one umand the kind of like that, and
(01:12:23):
I've even seen it you know I'veseen people on a, on a you know
a social feed, where it's likeyou know this person, some event
happened and the person was hadpsychiatric issues, but they
committed some crime.
It's like this person needshelp.
It's like you just want to givethis person some therapy and
pat them on the back.
I'm like, no, no, no, you don'tunderstand.
(01:12:44):
You have no clue.
First of all, what you'retalking about.
I'm talking about residentialcare and, uh and and.
When I say residential care,I'm talking about 24 hours a day
supervision.
I'm talking about groups andtherapy sessions and everything
else.
And if you think for a second,I could go to any person who
considers themselves normal andsay here's what I'd like you to
(01:13:05):
do.
I want you to go away foranywhere from 30 to 90 days
while a team of psychiatristsdays, while a team of
psychiatrists and doctors andtherapists circle around you and
look at your greatest deficitsand examine you.
You know from from, from headto toe, and your psychiatric and
(01:13:27):
mental well-being.
And if the thought of thatdoesn't terrify you, you're an
alien, and I think there aremany people who would, and I ran
into them as adolescents.
They would much rather go tojail than they would have to
endure the dive into the reasonwhy their life is a mess and
(01:13:51):
what accountability they havefor it, into the reason why
their life is a mess, and whataccountability they have for it.
Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
That's an extremely unbelievably hard challenge to
be that honest.
Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
The stigma is that I don't want to touch it.
It makes me uncomfortable.
You know what I mean For mentalhealth.
Yeah, you know what.
Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
I mean For mental health.
Yeah, I think this relates.
Maybe not, you'll tell me.
My youngest, who was mentallyill and saw all sorts of
specialists, at one point had anMRI taken of her brain and they
(01:14:36):
found what they call.
This is great.
They found what they call theUBO in her brain.
Do you know what that is?
No, an unidentified brightobject.
She thought that was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
Unidentified bright object.
Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
Yeah, yeah, that they detected in her brain, uh, and,
and she said, that's, that's it, that's the cause of all of
this, and a ubo in my brain and,and maybe that's true with all
of the, the people with thisillness, maybe there's a ubo ubo
in your brain, an identifiedbright object?
Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Maybe it's an identified dark object.
I think we can go a lot ofplaces with that.
Oh my gosh, jordan, it has beena real pleasure having you on
the show today.
I really appreciate the workthat you're doing.
I certainly hope to put you infront of people and help you do
it and everything else, but Ithink it's really important.
(01:15:35):
This has been Mental HealthMatters.
I'm Todd Weatherly.
I've been with Mr Jordan Lewistoday.
Jordan, thank you for being onthe show.
Thank you very much for yourtime, todd, absolutely, take
(01:16:10):
care.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
Oh, you should be lost in here.
In here, I'm a little power.
Oh, Power.
Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
Oh, you should be lost in here.
In here I'm a little power, ohPower, oh Power, oh Power, oh
Power, oh Power, oh Power, ohPower, oh Power, oh Power, oh
Power, oh Power, oh.
Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Power.
Oh, I need to find my way home.
Bye, I need to find my way home.
Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
I feel so lonely and lost in here.
I need to find my way home.
Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Find my way home.
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