Latest / Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health / Matt Brown, Chief Administration Officer and President at ARC Healthcare

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Matt Brown, Chief Administration Officer and President at ARC Healthcare · Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health

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  Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
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  I'm Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's
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  Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me
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  today, Matt Brown, chief administration officer and president
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  at Addiction Recovery Care. Matt, welcome to the
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  podcast. We're very excited to have you join
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  us today. 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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  Yes. Thank you so much for having me.
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  So my name is Matt Brown, and I'm
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  chief administration officer and president at AHRQ Healthcare.
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  Our organization
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  exists
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  to create opportunities for people to discover hope
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  and live their god given destiny.
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  And what that means at ARC is that
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  we have created a comprehensive
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  behavioral health system
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  that includes an inpatient psychiatric hospital,
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  residential
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  outpatient and telehealth
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  drug treatment
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  and recovery services,
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  a rural health clinic that includes primary care
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  and psychiatric
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  services
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  with the addition of pharmacy and lab services.
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  We also have an educational and vocational training
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  component to our organization
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  that allows people to move from crisis to
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  career,
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  and we are very focused on
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  giving people opportunities
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  to gain their GED,
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  to enter college,
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  to
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  earn a variety of certificates, including auto mechanics,
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  hospitality,
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  culinary arts, welding,
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  peer support, and more.
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  Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving us
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  that background. So for you, and for this
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  great organization, what opportunities and headwinds do you
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  kinda have in your in your site right
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  now?
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  So we believe,
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  in in the opportunities
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  is that many of our patients come into
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  our centers
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  and are suffering from a variety of primary
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  care
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  issues,
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  addiction,
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  generational poverty, and traumas.
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  And we're also seeing a rise in mental
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  health needs,
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  and so we're actively
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  innovating
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  programs to better serve our patients that have,
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  more co occurring disorders or even primary mental
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  health.
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  Wonderful. Thank you so much for giving us
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  that information.
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  How are you thinking about growth and kinda
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  adding value to your organization,
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  for this year and beyond?
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  So Kentucky is currently facing,
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  some downturns in reimbursement, and so that's forcing
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  behavioral health and mental health addiction providers all
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  across Kentucky
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  to really go back to the drawing board
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  and look at the programs that we offer,
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  look at the service lines,
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  look at the, you know, the patient needs,
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  and continue to innovate with patient centric care
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  models
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  that that really
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  optimize
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  the value
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  that we are bringing to the patients,
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  to the managed care organizations,
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  to the state of Kentucky and the taxpayers,
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  and really focusing in on what does quality
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  mean for this population that we serve,
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  what is a good outcome, how do we
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  define those, how do we standardize those.
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  AHRQ was a founding member of Kentucky's treatment
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  provider association,
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  and
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  that association is working with the different stakeholders
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  across the state
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  to define quality and to put in some
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  objective measures that can really define or decide
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  are we doing a good job and what
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  does that mean?
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  Yeah. Definitely. That makes a lot of sense.
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  So what is one risk or an investment,
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  that you really think is worth making this
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  year, would you say?
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  I think in data driven outcome measures, there's
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  a great opportunity because what I've seen in
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  the last couple years is that
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  there really needs to be an alignment of
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  the scoreboards
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  that we're all watching. And what I mean
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  by that is,
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  you know, maybe the thing that we're celebrating
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  about a patient's journey at Addiction Recovery Care
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  could very well be the thing that that
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  is
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  driving cost for the managed care organization and
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  but so our scoreboards are just not aligned
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  yet. And I think it really speaks to
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  the infancy
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  of this sector of health care. You know,
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  Kentucky was one of the first states in
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  the entire country
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  to
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  expand Medicaid
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  and
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  create a comprehensive benefit for all levels of
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  care of substance use disorder treatment for the
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  Medicaid population. That was in January of twenty
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  fifteen. So this sector of health care in
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  Kentucky for the Medicaid population
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  is only 10 old.
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  And and with that, you know, Kentucky have
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  done a wonderful job
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  of increasing access to treatment. Matter of fact,
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  East Tennessee State University
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  out of Chattanooga, Tennessee,
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  sometime late twenty twenty three, early '20 '20
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  '4,
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  they published a briefing
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  that
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  shows that Kentucky has the most residential treatment
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  beds per capita
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  of any state in the entire country. So
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  Kentucky absolutely has quantity figured out.
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  And now I strongly believe that the state,
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  the managed care organizations,
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  legislators,
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  and the providers
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  must circle back and make sure that quality
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  remains at the top of our focus for
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  the next couple years.
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  Yeah. That definitely makes a lot of sense.
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  Thank you so much for giving us that
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  that background.
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  Is there a one area in particular where
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  you see the the best opportunities for growth
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  in the future?
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  I believe
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  continuing to scale
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  telehealth options,
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  Kentucky and, you know, Appalachia, kind of where
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  we sit,
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  is a very rural part of America.
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  Transportation
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  is often an issue,
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  and
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  access to treatment can be an issue.
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  There's also a shortage of qualified staff in
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  many areas, and telehealth can really connect
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  the qualified
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  staff
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  to the person in need
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  in a way that rural America greatly needs.
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  And and just like I have shared before
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  on a couple other public forums
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  is
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  I know there's kind of a a lot
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  of back and forth about telehealth, and is
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  it as good as in person
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  visits, or is it better or worse?
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  And the reality is is sometimes
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  we're not choosing between telehealth or in person.
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  We're choosing between telehealth and nothing at all.
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  And so I'm taking telehealth every day when
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  it comes to telehealth versus nothing at all.
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  Definitely. Definitely. I I hear about telehealth very
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  often, and it's amazing how it's been able
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  to help,
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  so many families take their health seriously. So
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  I definitely agree with you, especially that last
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  statement.
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  And thank you so much for those final
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  thoughts, Matt. This has definitely been a very
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  informative discussion. So I wanna thank you so
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  much for coming on Becker's health care, and
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  I look forward to connecting with you again
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  soon. Yes. Thank you so much for having
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  me.