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Category: Addiction News

  • Inadequate Mental Health Treatment Hinders Massachusetts Residents

    Inadequate Mental Health Treatment Hinders Massachusetts Residents

    Only about 50% of Massachusetts mental health providers accept payment from the state and federal Medicaid program. Private insurance isn’t much better.

    Patients in Massachusetts are struggling to receive adequate mental health care but not because of lack of insurance coverage. 

    The Boston Globe reports that based on a new Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation survey of 2,201 residents, more than half recently sought mental health or substance use disorder treatment but had difficulty receiving such treatment.

    Of those surveyed, 39% went without treatment altogether and about 13% resorted to an emergency room visit even though about half of those admitted that their care was not an emergency. 

    Though insured, the majority of patients struggled to find care because certain providers did not take their insurance or because practices were not accepting new clients at the time. 

    In October, the Globe reported that Massachusetts was home to more mental health care providers per capita than any other US state. It also has more psychiatrists than any other state, with the exception of Washington, DC, and more child psychiatrists than all states but Rhode Island and DC. 

    Even so, residents of the state are struggling. According to The Globe, only about 50% of Massachusetts providers accept payment from the state and federal Medicaid program. And private insurance isn’t much better, as only about half the psychiatrists in the Northeast accept it. 

    Audrey Shelto, president of the foundation that conducted the survey, told The Globe that this was the first time since the survey began a decade ago that it asked about mental health and substance use disorder treatment access.  

    “If change is going to happen at the magnitude that’s needed, it’s going to be necessary that we start building a more solid evidence base,” Shelto said.

    According to Shelto and others in the field, one possible solution would be paying psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers more, because private insurers and Medicaid currently do not pay them enough. Those in the practice also spend a great deal of time on applications for insurance networks as well as paperwork for patient treatment. 

    According to The Globe, Health and Human Services has stated that between 2016 and 2020, Medicaid is increasing fees to mental health providers by $100 million. 

    But Vic DiGravio, president of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare in Natick, told The Globe this isn’t enough to convince more providers to join the program. 

    DiGravio adds that access to prescribers such as psychiatrists are one of the biggest battles being faced currently. 

    “For a clinic to have a doctor on staff to see patients on a regular basis, the rates don’t cover their time,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Does James Bond Have A Drinking Problem?

    Does James Bond Have A Drinking Problem?

    A new study did a breakdown of James Bond’s drinking behavior to determine if the secret agent has a “severe” and “chronic” relationship with alcohol.

    Over the course of two-dozen films over the past 60 years, James Bond was seen drinking alcohol 109 times—and often engaging in risky behavior when doing so—The Washington Post reports. 

    These numbers come from a recent study conducted by public health experts from the University of Otago in New Zealand, which concluded that Bond had a  “severe” and “chronic” relationship with alcohol and met more than half the criteria for alcohol use disorder. Bond also, according to the researchers, engaged in risky behavior during or after drinking.

    “Chronic risks include frequently drinking prior to fights, driving vehicles (including in chases), high-stakes gambling, operating complex machinery or devices, contact with dangerous animals, extreme athletic performance and sex with enemies, sometimes with guns or knives in the bed,” lead author Nick Wilson said in a statement.

    In Quantum of Solace, researchers noted that Bond drank six Vespers (gin, vodka and a mix of wines), which would have put his blood alcohol level at about .36 grams per deciliter. This, according to researchers, is nearly enough to lead to come, heart failure and death. 

    But Bond topped that in one of the Bond books, in which he had 50 units of alcohol in just one day. According to Wilson, that’s “a level of consumption which would kill nearly everyone.”

    In an email to The Post, Wilson wrote that the films are “very good for studying trends in behaviors such as smoking and drinking” and that “it was also a fun study to do— and the ridiculousness of some of Bond’s actions after drinking helped give the work some scope for a laugh.”

    A 2013 study also examined Bond’s relationship with alcohol in the books, stating that it had him “at high risk of multiple alcohol-related diseases and an early death.’” Researchers also added that his level of funtion “is inconsistent with the physical, mental, and indeed sexual functioning expected from someone drinking this much alcohol.”

    According to authors of the most recent study, Bond’s place of employment should have stepped in.

    “Bond’s workplace (MI6) should be a more responsible employer by referring him to work-funded counseling or psychiatric support services for managing his alcohol use disorder,” authors wrote. “These services should also determine whether he has any post-traumatic stress after killing so many people and having been tortured so often.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Miley Cyrus Talks About Using Marijuana Again After Quitting

    Miley Cyrus Talks About Using Marijuana Again After Quitting

    Miley Cyrus says her mom, who “smokes a lot of weed,” got her to begin smoking it again. 

    A year after she spoke publicly about quitting marijuana, Miley Cyrus says she’s back to smoking pot, although not while she’s working.

    Cyrus, 26, said that her mom Tish, who “smokes a lot of weed,” got her using again. 

    “My mom got me back on it,” Cyrus said, according to USA Today. “When I’m just working I don’t think I function at my highest, most intelligent, most being-able-to-be-as-aware-and-as-present, so I don’t smoke when I work.”

    Tish even threatened to quit as Cyrus’ manager to start growing cannabis, but Cyrus laughed off the idea. 

    “My dad’s got a farm and she’s like ‘I’m just going to quit everything and grow.’ She’s my manager. So if my mom quits everything, that’s quitting me to go home and, like, grow weed,” she said. “Which doesn’t sound like the best idea. … My mom could barely keep us alive. She’s not going to grow pot.” 

    In May 2017, Cyrus told Billboard why she stopped smoking weed, despite thinking it’s “the best drug on earth.” 

    “I like to surround myself with people that make me want to get better, more evolved, open. And I was noticing, it’s not the people that are stoned,” she said. “I want to be super clear and sharp, because I know exactly where I want to be.”

    Later that summer, Cyrus appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, joking about how high she had been during past performances on the show.

    “I’ve always been very stoned on your shows. I don’t know if you know this, everybody,” she said. “‘Member the last time I was here? I was dressed as a bunny rabbit and then like a cat. There’s a reason for that: I was high.”

    Cyrus said she quit because she wanted to focus on the quality of her work.  

    “I’m actually the most passionate about what I’m doing with this record than I’ve been—I say this every time, but I loved making this record so, so much. And this record at this moment is the most important album that I’ve ever made,” she said. “So I wanted to make sure that I was super clear in the way I’m talking.”

    Cyrus said that before that appearance she had a dream she was so stoned on the show she just dropped dead. It was so realistic that she researched whether it was possible, only to find she was very unlikely to die from smoking weed. 

    “It’s like no one’s ever died from weed, but no one’s ever smoked as much as I did,” she said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Cannabis Industry Searches for Consistent High

    Cannabis Industry Searches for Consistent High

    “No one ever knows what they’re getting, and it’s a huge problem. It’s making it so the [cannabis] industry doesn’t work very well,” said one scientific expert about the lack of consistency.

    The cannabis industry is expanding rapidly, but scientists and investors are still chasing an elusive goal: a cannabis plant that can provide a predictable high when it is smoked. 

    Although tinctures, edibles and other products made with cannabis extracts can offer more exact amounts of cannabinoids that make the effects more consistent, industry leaders say that consumers want a bud that can offer the same type of reliable experience. Right now, that doesn’t exist. 

    “No one ever knows what they’re getting, and it’s a huge problem,” Mowgli Holmes, chief scientific officer of Phylos Bioscience in Portland, Oregon, told NBC News. “It’s making it so the industry doesn’t work very well. Often it’s way too strong. It’s Russian roulette. New customers get burned and don’t come back.”

    Jon Vaught, CEO of agricultural technology firm Front Range Biosciences, said that people who want to know what effects they’ll experience when using cannabis often opt for manufactured products because they better understand what they’re getting. Still, there is a demand for a marijuana flower that offers the same consistency. 

    “Folks are using it in new forms, low-dose, edibles, tinctures, capsules, and what they care about is the effect,” he said. “But there are consumers who want to consume cannabis the way they have for years. They like the things they know.”

    Growers have been chasing the goal for years but now there are more financial incentives than ever to get a product to market, with marijuana flower sales expected to reach $8.5 billion annually by 2022. 

    “That’s been the goal forever,” said Greg Zuckert, vice president of cultivation for cannabis producer Harvest Health & Recreation. 

    Some growers and researchers are analyzing the DNA of marijuana plants to better understand the effects they’ll have when smoked. 

    “I’m working on genetic markers and looking at taking DNA from different species, trying to create genetics to fit neurochemical profiles to treat different ailments,” Zukert said. “These are exciting things.”

    Growers who use specific genetic traits may be able to patent their plants, leading to an industry full of brand-name marijuana varieties that are much more tightly controlled than the strains pot aficionados are familiar with today. 

    “In the future, those strains will all be irrelevant,” said Marcus Walker, founder of Cult Classics Seeds in Colorado. 

    Attorney Gary Hiller of California’s Napro Research, a California seed-to-sale producer, said that various cannabis plants will likely become proprietary.

    “It doesn’t matter what it’s called once it’s correctly characterized and a good breeder can replicate it,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dennis Rodman Pushing To Get Sober Again After Recent Relapse

    Dennis Rodman Pushing To Get Sober Again After Recent Relapse

    Despite relapsing, Dennis Rodman said he’s still focused on his recovery and doesn’t think he’s undone the progress he’s made over the past year. 

    Dennis Rodman says he’s in contact with his sponsor and attending AA meetings again after letting his sobriety slip two weeks ago. 

    According to TMZ, the star was out in the Newport Beach bar scene and had stopped going to 12-step meetings because they got boring. However, Rodman said he realized drinking again was a mistake and he reached out to his sponsor and his agent, Darren Prince, who has been sober himself for 10 years, for help. 

    “Dennis is the king of rebounds and he’ll rebound from this too,” said Prince. 

    Rodman entered rehab in January after getting a DUI. At the time, Prince said that was the culmination of years of substance abuse for the former NBA star. 

    “It’s no secret Dennis has been struggling on and off with alcoholism the past 17 years,” Prince said. “He’s been dealing with some very personal issues the past month and we’re going to get him the help he needs now.”

    More recently, Rodman told TMZ that the DUI got his attention. 

    “It was a wake-up call. . . . I’ve been doing pretty good man, considering the fact that before that it was up and down up and down being Dennis Rodman the party guy,” he said. 

    Despite his relapse, he said he’s still focused on his recovery and he doesn’t think he’s undone the progress he’s made over the past year. 

    “Now I got a clear view of what’s going on in life so that’s a good process,” he said. “It’s a long process and it’s gonna take time to get over the hump.”. 

    Early this year, when he was just 30 days sober, Rodman acknowledged that keeping clean was going to be tough.

    “I feel great, man. It’s kinda weird not to have a cocktail on a beautiful day in California but like I said, it’s just one day at a time,” he said in February. “I’m hoping that I can continue on my journey to be sober. That’s a long road.”

    Rodman has been in treatment before, including in 2014 after he returned from a much-publicized trip to North Korea. During that trip he appeared drunk and insinuated that an American in a North Korean prison deserved his treatment. 

    “What was potentially a historical and monumental event turned into a nightmare for everyone concerned. Dennis Rodman came back from North Korea in rough shape emotionally,” Prince said at the time. “The pressure that was put on him to be a combination ‘super human’ political figure and ‘fixer’ got the better of him. He is embarrassed, saddened and remorseful for the anger and hurt his words have caused.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Advent: Deepening Our Commitment to Recovery

    Advent: Deepening Our Commitment to Recovery

    Haven’t we struggled through the dark in our addictions and now live inside truth’s illumination? So why not spend these weeks in spiritual reflection and renewing our commitment to recovery?

    Advent, from the Latin, adventus — “a coming” — is, for Christians, the season celebrating Jesus Christ’s impending birth and his second coming after his death. The liturgical readings over the four weeks are centered on hope, preparation, joy, and love. It is also the season of the Advent wreath and its four candles, one lit successively each week, and of the Advent calendar and its 25 chocolates secreted behind twenty-five cardboard windows. Reflection and prayer, sweetness and light: the dark illuminated by remembrance and anticipation.

    When I was drinking? The season for wanton indulgence: cranberry cosmopolitans, eggnog, mulled wine, and Irish coffees. Parties and booze and blackouts and hangovers. Superficial, carnal pursuits superseded any spiritual meditative pleasures. How many Christmas Eves did my then-husband and I spend slogging wine into the wee hours while last-minute wrapping gifts, crankier with each downed glass? And then the wretched hangover on Christmas mornings when our kids, wiggly with Santa excitement, woke us at dawn — “Get up! Get up! Get up!”— and how we dragged ourselves from bed, desperate for ibuprofen and coffee? 

    The ritual of prayer and the ritual of drink. The lead-up to Christmas and then New Year’s celebrations can be difficult for those of us who are sober and trying to stay sober: we might be tempted by the fireside glass of wine or flute of effervescent champagne, or by friends gathering in the pub or our own loneliness when we stay home alone. Even now, eight years sober, I still can feel that pull: Join us! You’re missing out! A bottle of red, a bottle of white is the easy way to holiday cheer.

    I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.

    I don’t consider that pull for more than a millisecond because I know that drinking does not, in the end, make me cheerful; it makes me suicidal. The best gift I can give to myself and the best gift I can receive is my sobriety which is its own advent calendar: I go to sleep in anticipation of that sweet gift the next morning — waking up sober and without shame and with surety that I am alive and well. 

    But the advent season does not only have to be a Christian celebration but can guide us in deepening our commitment to sobriety. I am no longer a practicing Catholic, though I still feel a fierce keening toward sustaining rituals like Christmas carols and trees and midnight mass. Advent is a season of remembrance and anticipation of birth and rebirth, so why not spend these weeks in spiritual reflection: in remembrance of all that I lost to my addiction but also all that I have since gained in sobriety, and, in anticipation of the promises that are still waiting to be fulfilled tomorrow morning when I open my window for the day’s light.

    Because haven’t we, too, experienced our own second coming, our own rebirth? Haven’t we struggled through the dark in our addictions and don’t we now live inside truth’s illumination? Haven’t wise men and women given us the gifts of honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness so that we can say, in gratitude or prayer to our Higher Power, “Yes, I choose this day, this life, now and forever?”

    Last week, far from home in Ireland and with news of a friend’s death, I went for a very long run, miles and miles, trying to outrun grief’s hangover and Sunday loneliness and had every intention, upon my return, of climbing into bed and pulling the covers over my head and sleeping it off. And then my phone chimed its calendar alert and a little window opened: December 2nd, the first Sunday of Advent, the candlelight choral service at the cathedral.

    Immediately, that insistent voice in my head interrupted: Skip it! Skip it! Skip it! You’re tired and spent!

    That voice sounded exactly like the voice that used to say: Drink it! Drink it! Drink it! You’re tired and spent!

    Tired and spent, yes, and exactly why I needed to go to the service: song and ritual, darkness and light, what is coming and coming and coming for us all can be hope and love and community. I sang the hymns and prayed the prayers and cried the necessary tears of both grief and wonder as one candle after another illuminated all of us gathered in the cathedral, a reminder that we are not alone in the dark but surrounded by fellowship.

    We are here only to bring light in our own unique ways to those alone in the dark, to remember that light from above illuminates the unsteady ground under our feet, and that we can travel towards each other, meeting each other inside our light.

    Note: That cathedral, 850 years old, has survived Viking invasions, Norman sieges, Cromwell, Independence, and is still here, as are we, survivors all.

    How are you working on your recovery today? What are you grateful for?

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Small Town Brings In Big-Thinking Addiction Specialist And Changes Everything

    Small Town Brings In Big-Thinking Addiction Specialist And Changes Everything

    Nearly 82% of rural Americans live in counties that do not have detoxification services and the town of Ashland, Wisconsin sought to change that reality.

    In a little town in Wisconsin, where the death rate from drug and alcohol abuse is almost twice as high as the state average, Dr. Mark Lim has changed the lives of those addicted and their families.

    A certified addiction specialist since 2016 (when it became a subspecialty of certification), Dr. Lim arrived in the town of Ashland as the newly hired recovery program medical director at NorthLakes Community Clinic.

    Rural communities typically lack basic resources to treat substance abuse.

    Nearly 82% of rural Americans live in counties that do not have detoxification services, a staggering number. This means anyone struggling with drug addiction has two choices – they can try to endure detox on their own (often medically unsafe), with the support of a local doctor (often hard to find in such areas) or they can relocate to begin treatment.

    A recent poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health named opioid and other drug abuse as the top health concern for rural Americans.

    The town of Ashland wanted to change this scenario. To fund an addiction treatment service program, NorthLakes applied for and won a grant from the state of Wisconsin, in addition to obtaining other federal grants intended for mental health and addiction.

    The next step was to hire a doctor to prescribe buprenorphine, known by the trade name Suboxone. Only doctors with special training are legally allowed to dole out Suboxone. Another staggering statistic on rural reality: a 2015 study found that more than 80% of US rural counties do not have even one physician able to prescribe it.

    Dr. Lim was hired and flew into Ashland with one request: He wanted to head a comprehensive program to treat addiction and not just treat it from one angle. Dr. Lim told NPR, “Opioids are big right now, but you have to work with alcohol too. You have to work with marijuana too. You have to work with methamphetamine, cocaine.”

    The addiction recovery program was built with community partners including educators, law enforcement and tribal leadership. The Ashland program includes a combination of counseling, group therapy for addiction and underlying mental health issues, as well as case management. Staff help patients with things like transportation to the clinic, daycare during therapy sessions and employment.

    John Gale of the Maine Rural Health Research Center supports this program structure, telling NPR, “That’s exactly the way it should be done. Because most people with a substance use disorder have co-occurring mental health and substance use problems. If we take care of [a patient’s] heroin problems and we don’t treat the underlying mental health and substance abuse problems, they’re going to go to go to [sic] alcohol, they’re going to do something else.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Study Questions Treatment For Pregnant Women With Opioid Addiction

    Study Questions Treatment For Pregnant Women With Opioid Addiction

    The study’s findings might cause medical providers to reconsider what is the best standard of care for pregnant women with opioid addiction, according to the lead study author. 

    A study released this week found that infants who are exposed to opioids in the womb have significantly smaller head sizes at birth than babies who were not exposed to opioids, suggesting that they are at increased risk of mental health and developmental problems and potentially calling into question the standard treatment for women with opioid use disorder who discover they are pregnant.  

    The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, found that infants who were exposed to opioids were three times more likely to have a head circumference that measured in the bottom 10%. A small head circumference has previously been linked to mental health problems and developmental delays. 

    “Babies chronically exposed to opiates [during pregnancy] had a head size about a centimeter smaller’ than babies born to moms not using drugs,” said Dr. Craig Towers, lead study author and professor of obstetrics and gynecology with the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. This included babies whose mothers were on medication-assisted treatment with methadone or buprenorphine, the current standard of care for women who discover they’re pregnant while abusing opioids. 

    Towers said that the findings might cause medical providers to reconsider what is the best standard of care for pregnant women who are addicted to opioids. 

    “What we’re recommending these moms do, which is get on methadone and buprenorphine, may result in a smaller head size of the baby,” Towers said. “This is going to have to make us re-look at what we’re doing.”

    During the study, mothers were routinely screened for drugs so that researchers could control for the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs other than opioids. With this information, they were able to definitively link opioid exposure and lower head circumference. 

    Although the results may call into question the use of prescribed opioids during pregnancy, Towers said that putting women on maintenance therapy remains the best option for now. Women who are abusing opioids and stop suddenly can experience withdrawal that may cause them to miscarry or can increase their risk of relapse, which can have fatal results for both mom and baby. 

    “I don’t want anyone to think putting them on methadone or buprenorphine is not the way to go. If they continue to use street drugs, that’s exponentially worse,” Towers said. With prescribed drugs, a woman and her doctor at least know exactly what she is taking, he said. 

    He said the study could encourage more conversations between women and their care providers. 

    “There are risks to the mom if she tapers and detoxes, but there are risks to the baby if she stays on maintenance therapy,” Towers said. “There needs to be informed consent so the mother can choose how she wants to go.”

    Dr. Mark Hudak, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Florida College of Medicine who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, said that the research is likely to be “very controversially received.”

    “I think there’s going to be pushback on it, but one has to follow the evidence,” he said. ”The whole pillar of opioid maintenance therapy is based upon the fact this is better for the mother and the baby in the sense that the mother is in therapy, she is more closely monitored, she’s more likely to access good prenatal care, she’s less likely to engage in behaviors that would be harmful to her or the fetus… You now have to ask, is that the only or the best way for all women.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Young Mayor’s Overdose Death Captures National Epidemic

    Young Mayor’s Overdose Death Captures National Epidemic

    “I never would’ve thought he had an issue. Brandon made a mistake and paid the ultimate price,” the former mayor’s mother said after his fatal overdose. 

    The story of a small-town Pennsylvania mayor and his friend who both fatally overdosed on opioids is highlighting the dangers of the national drug epidemic and the heartbreak of families left behind. 

    Brandon Wentz was 24 when he overdosed last year. He had recently resigned as mayor of Mount Carbon, population 87, because his family had moved to a nearby town. The resignation hit Wentz hard, said his mother, Janel Firestone.

    “You could just see the stress and sadness in him,” she told the Associated Press.

    After struggling to write his resignation letter, which ended up being just 180 words, Wentz’s friend Ryan Fessler came over. The pair had been spending more time together, according to Fessler’s childhood friend. 

    “They were the same person,” she said. “They both wrote, they both drew, they would make up funny raps together. They really did want the best for each other.”

    However, this worried some of Wentz’s friends, who knew that Fessler struggled with substance abuse. 

    “He wasn’t a bad person, he was nice, but he had his own demons, too, and demons will invite more demons,” said Brandon Radziewicz, Wentz’s longtime friend. “I think they were good at fueling each other’s habits.”

    The day of the resignation letter, the two men went to Wentz’s room until Fessler left. That afternoon, Firestone tried to wake her son for his overnight shift, but he wouldn’t rouse. She suspected he had a migraine, and since he had always been a heavy sleeper she wasn’t concerned. However, the next morning Wentz was dead of an overdose of heroin and fentanyl, something that shocked Firestone.

    “I never would’ve thought he had an issue,” she said. “Brandon made a mistake and paid the ultimate price.” 

    While Wentz’s family was blindsided, Fessler’s family knew of his addiction and did everything possible to protect him from overdose until he died just six months after Wentz, even sending him to treatment in Florida. However, Fessler’s grief over losing his best friend just made his addiction worse. A few weeks after Wentz died, Fessler’s girlfriend found him in bed crying, saying, “I killed my best friend. I gave it to him.” 

    Firestone, who was always skeptical of her son’s relationship with Fessler, blamed him for Wentz’s overdose. Fessler’s mother, Kim Kramer, said she understands completely.

    “I get it, I truly do,” she said. “You wake up, you think about it all day, it’s forever there. You want to find out who gave it to them. … You want to hate the one who handed your son the bag.”

    Firestone says she wishes Wentz’s friends had brought his drug abuse to her attention, something Radziewicz says he should have done, in hindsight. 

    “I was thinking, foolishly, that I would lose my best friend, and he wouldn’t talk to me again,” he said. “Guess what? I lost my best friend.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Hedge Fund Tycoon" Helps Fund Mental Health Clinic For Vets

    "Hedge Fund Tycoon" Helps Fund Mental Health Clinic For Vets

    The Cohen Veteran’s Network in Tampa, Florida will soon add another clinic to its ranks thanks to a “hedge fund tycoon.”

    Veterans in the Tampa area will soon have another option for mental and behavioral health treatment, as the Cohen Veterans Network plans to open a new clinic by March.

    The clinic, according to The Tampa Bay Times, is funded by “hedge fund tycoon” Steven A. Cohen. This will be the network’s 12th such clinic, and the concept behind them is to fill in the areas of mental and behavioral health that the Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t reach.

    This, according to the Times, will include services for veterans with “less than honorable” discharges as well as members of their families.

    The clinic is expected to serve about 500 patients in the first year of operation. To start, the clinic will be funded with $8 million in seed money, the Times states. The network covered the costs for the clinic buildout and the first three years of operation. By the six-year mark, clinic officials are required to have raised 50% of the operating costs.

    While both the American Veterans (AMVETS) and the Department of Veterans Affairs have expressed support, others aren’t so convinced. Marvin Southard, who was CEO of the Cohen Veterans Network’s first clinic at the University of Southern California, tells the Times that the clinics avoided treating more difficult patients for “commercial reasons.”

    “Both USC and NYU had problems with the Cohen program,” Southard said.

    Southard added that he feels “that what is required in a veteran-heavy locality like Tampa is a true convener organization or person who could bring the veterans service community together as collaborators rather than as competitors. I had hoped that the Cohen project could have served that role, but in Los Angeles, at least, they were inclined to do the opposite.”

    However, Anthony Hassan, the Cohen Veterans Network CEO and president, says the clinic’s mission is to simply fill the gaps in care. He says that since the first clinic opened in 2016, more than 8,600 patients have been treated through the network, and about half of those were non-veteran family members who were not eligible for treatment from the VA.

    According to the Times, US Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Trinity), who is the vice chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, is giving the clinics the benefit of the doubt.

    “Any entity serving the veteran community … should be held accountable for meeting the highest standard of care,” his spokesperson, Summer Robertson, told the Times via email. “If the Cohen Network helps meet an unmet need by providing mental health services in the Tampa area, that could potentially be a good option for some veterans.”

    Like the other clinics, Hassan tells the Times that the Tampa clinic will work with the VA and other local services to find patients needing care. He also says the clinics are not a method of privatizing care or profit-making.

    View the original article at thefix.com