Latest / Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health / Transforming Trauma Care: Aimee McCann on Rethinking Mental Health Treatment

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Transforming Trauma Care: Aimee McCann on Rethinking Mental Health Treatment · Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health

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  Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm
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  Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's Healthcare.
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  And I'm thrilled to have with me today
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  Amy McCann, CEO and founder of Banyan Mental
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  Health Solutions.
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  Amy, welcome to the podcast. We're very excited
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  to have you join us today, especially for
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  the first
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  time. But to get us started, would you
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  mind please introducing yourself and telling us a
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  bit about your background?
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  Sure.
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  I'm Amy McCann. Like she said, I have
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  a bachelor's and a master's degree in social
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  work. I finished my master's thirty four years
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  ago and have been in all kinds of
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  levels of care throughout, you know, PHP,
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  IOP, inpatient.
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  I have not done residential. But in addition
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  to all that, I've had lots of other
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  experiences,
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  like, with children,
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  in therapy.
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  And so currently, I have a private practice
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  that focuses on trauma,
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  especially complex trauma, which is attachment
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  trauma, wounding,
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  dissociative disorders, and the co occurring disorders that
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  that occur.
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  So in my private practice, I have found
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  a lot of difficulties in obtaining higher levels
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  of care for some of my folks because
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  most of them do have insurance, and they
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  need to use insurance
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  in order to access higher levels of care
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  like inpatient, even PHP, IOP.
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  And I found that there was a gap
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  in services. And so I decided to create
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  Banyan Mental Health.
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  We use Banyan Mental Health as the the
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  shorter
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  name for Banyan Health Mental Health Solutions.
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  In order to
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  compound some of the problems I've noticed, not
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  only through professional experiences, but personal
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  lived experiences
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  throughout
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  the treatment that I received.
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  So practicing vulnerability is something that I'm trying
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  very hard to do because I want to
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  normalize emotions for everybody, and I would like
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  to change our language in terms of
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  you know, we are
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  diagnosing disorders in order to obtain insurance reimbursements.
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  However, I believe that it's better for all
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  of us to acknowledge
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  that trauma or just chronic stress that we
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  have in our lives, in our daily lives,
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  can lead to
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  the adaptations that we're making and the symptoms
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  that we're saying are
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  pathological.
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  So
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  I just finished
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  completing a study for Purdue,
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  University
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  as a part of a team,
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  And we hope to
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  I'll be coauthoring that paper, and we hope
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  to submit it for publishing this summer.
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  I was also serving as the acute care
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  special interest group
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  secretary for the International Society of the Study
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  of Trauma and Dissociation.
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  So I'll be talking a little bit about
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  that as to, you know, how
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  that group and the research that I've done
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  has influenced
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  the reasons that I've decided to create Banyan.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That that's definitely amazing. Thank
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  you so much for sharing. Mental health has
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  definitely been a topic that's getting more shine,
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  and it's become a lot more comfortable to
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  talk about in society, which is great.
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  But what opportunities and headwinds do you kinda
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  have your eye on right now?
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  Well, because there are so many people that
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  are
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  lacking
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  access to higher levels of care, the opportunity
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  is to make a change in how we
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  how we conduct our business.
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  So Banyan Mental Health is a nonprofit,
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  and we have absolutely no intention
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  of
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  simply making
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  treatment decisions because we need to keep somebody
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  there. We hope to find
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  funding to
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  make up the difference for what insurance reimbursements
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  aren't making.
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  So,
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  we're looking at providing trauma focused care.
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  And trauma focused, meaning we are gonna do
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  things that are very different. We want to
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  be innovators
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  and using the most recent research based
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  approaches that we can that will
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  not only treat the symptoms, but the underlying
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  original traumas that these folks have experienced.
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  So
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  we hope to provide
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  an option for people that have chronic suicide
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  ideation. So that includes
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  folks with complex trauma,
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  dissociative disorders,
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  things like treatment resistant depression. You'll see borderline
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  personality disorder pretty frequently.
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  We will be treating eating disorders, which is
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  very different because right now, it's I think
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  it's almost impossible to find
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  eating disorder treatment that will treat somebody with
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  eating disorder and a dissociative disorder.
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  And in and of themselves, eating disorders are
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  dissociatives
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  to some extent.
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  So I'm hoping to bring something very new,
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  bottom up. You know, it's based in the
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  body,
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  and nobody else is doing that,
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  at least not that's taking insurance. So I
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  think that we have that great opportunity to
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  make a change,
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  and I'm pretty excited about all that.
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  And the other thing is is that I
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  absolutely want to have an option
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  that is not inpatient
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  treatment for folks. Treatment
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  added an inpatient level
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  for trauma focused care has decreased significantly in
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  The US. And there are only a few
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  places that I can refer to, and all
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  of them are out of state, in Ohio,
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  by the way.
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  So by giving an option so that people
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  don't have to go inpatient, so they don't
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  have to have the trauma that people experience
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  on inpatient units because
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  decreased reimbursements mean less staffing,
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  less staff training.
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  And so we want to prevent the traumas
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  that people
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  experience during those inpatient stays.
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  As much as up to sixty seven percent
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  of people
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  have PTSD
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  symptoms from their admission.
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  And that study was just done in '26
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  2016 or 2018.
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  So
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  that's another reason. I think it's a huge
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  opportunity to do something different.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I do not know that
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  statistic,
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  which that's very shocking,
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  and very unfortunate to hear. So I definitely
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  agree with you there.
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  You talked a lot about,
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  your future plans and what you're doing right
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  now within your organization. How are you thinking
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  about growth and adding value to your organization,
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  for the remainder of the year or or
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  the next five years even?
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  We have to prove ourselves first. We are
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  not open yet, and the issue is is
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  that we don't have enough funding to open.
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  I've been working on this for over two
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  and a half years,
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  and we're just now to the point where
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  we're ready to do you know, we're ready
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  to move, but we don't have funding.
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  So we're seeking funding.
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  But the growth, you know, part of it
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  is we wanna be very, very careful to
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  create a culture,
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  for our employees,
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  slow, careful hiring.
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  We wanna focus on innovation.
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  And if we can prove ourselves and if
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  we can be financially sustainable, I think that
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  there's a great opportunity
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  to
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  replicate this in other areas.
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  Because one of the barriers to care for
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  a lot of people in states that have
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  Medicaid,
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  those Medicaid folks have a really hard time
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  obtaining
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  higher levels of care outside of their state.
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  So I think the opportunity is is to
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  plant them in other states so that more
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  access can be, can be had for folks.
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  And, also, I definitely wanna be a research
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  site.
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  I'm collaborating
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  with trying to build collaborations with universities,
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  and I definitely have some connections to some
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  great,
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  people that are doing
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  really
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  groundbreaking,
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  research.
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  But the problem is is that
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  we need to have a university to kinda
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  collaborate with.
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  So that's one of my big goals that,
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  you know, maybe we can make a change
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  as to how we are going to approach
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  treatment now.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That makes a lot of
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  sense. And I guess adding on to that,
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  is there one risk or investment
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  that you think is worth making this year
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  for your organization? Or I guess, advice for
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  other people,
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  that kinda are doing the same thing?
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  Well, the risk is doing it differently.
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  I think that,
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  currently, we've got a lot of
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  providers
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  who are doing the same thing that they've
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  done for the last
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  fifteen years, twenty years even.
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  So the risk is doing this differently,
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  convincing
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  people that, you know, this is the way
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  to go because the idea is to reduce
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  shame. And there are a lot of practices
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  out there that shame people into believing that
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  they should just change their behavior. They should
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  just change their cognitions
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  so that they can, you know, behave and
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  fit in with, you know, the system that
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  they're living in, whatever that is, the family
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  or,
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  school system, whatever.
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  And
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  for goodness sakes, I think that, you know,
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  they're stagnant,
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  these other providers, and we need to be
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  innovative. We need to keep trying. So
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  the biggest risk is trying to find people
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  to, you know, buy into this. So it's
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  gonna take some time. Does that make sense?
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  Yeah. Yeah. No. That definitely makes sense. And
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  you talked a lot about growth and
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  other opportunities and headwinds.
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  For my last question, is there any other
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  places,
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  where you see the best opportunities for growth
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  in the future within the mental health space?
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  And I think that's it, is doing something
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  different and actually treating the underlying problem so
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  that we're reducing recidivism.
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  And I'm really targeting
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  overall health outcomes. I'm not just looking at
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  mental health symptoms. I'm looking at long term
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  physical health outcomes so that we can reduce
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  things like
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  the incidences
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  of cancer,
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  diabetes,
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  and cardiovascular
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  disease.
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  There's a lot of things that I think
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  that if we do it right the first
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  time,
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  if we actually spend the money on doing
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  correctly,
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  then later, we're not gonna be wasting all
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  that money.
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  And we have to change to a a
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  nonprofit
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  format. I think that for profit capitalism
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  creates a conflict of interest, especially if there's
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  a vertical in a an integration model
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  in which the insurer is the provider.
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  And I don't want anything to do with
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  that. I I think that we would be,
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  you know, mistreating
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  people
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  if we continue to just try to fill
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  beds and try to get them through the
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  system instead of dealing with the underlying problem
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  to begin with.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much for
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  those final thoughts. This has definitely been a
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  very informative discussion. I know I've learned something.
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  So, again, I wanna thank you so much
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  for coming on Pecos HealthCare, especially for the
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  first time, and I look forward to connecting
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  with you again soon. Sure. Thanks, Mariah. Appreciate
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  it.