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Ep. 2 - Peter Schorr
May 28, 2020
Peter Schorr has devoted his life to providing people with quality healthcare in both the addiction and mental health areas. As founder, President and CEO of Retreat Behavioral Health, he has built a revolutionary system to provide all levels of care to people in need.
Peter joins us on this edition of the Behavioral Corner with his insights on the road ahead regarding the all important question of how best to deliver this care during and after the coronavirus pandemic.
About Retreat Behavioral Health
Retreat Behavioral Health is a healthcare provider based in Palm Beach County, FL, operating large residential and outpatient treatment sites throughout Florida, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. Retreat specializes in substance abuse and mental health care services.
For more information, please call 855.802.6600, or visit our website at https://www.retreatbehavioralhealth.com, or connect with Retreat Behavioral Health on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
For media inquiries or more information, please contact: Marissa Hayes – Corporate Director of CommunicationsEmail:
marissah@retreatmail.com
Episode 2 - Peter Schorr Interview Transcript
Hi and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano. And this is the Behavioral Corner. You're invited to hang with us. As we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and well being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner, please hang around a while.
Behavioral health is a big broad topic. That issue like so many other issues in our lives has been profoundly impacted by the current Coronavirus pandemic in the quarantine. There is no aspect of our lives that have not been touched about this. We've been talking to people here on the first couple of behavioral corner shows about how their business and their perspectives have been altered by this and asking them to guess with us in a great deal of uncertainty about what the future may hold. To that end, we welcome Peter Schorr. Peter is the founder and the CEO of retreat behavioral health and he is of course our great good partners in this program. They underwrite the program behavioral corner. Peter short, always a pleasure How are you? Are is everyone safe and secure in your life?
Everyone's good thank you, Steve, How about yourself?
We're you know, we're holding up as well as anybody else we have not we, you know, which we find ourselves doing is when we start to whine or get, you know, upset about all the restrictions, you remember how lucky we are. I mean, we really have been, you know, relatively speaking. Lucky. So, uh, Peter, you know, we're, you know, we're launching into the brave new world of podcasting here and we always value your, your support and partnership in here. The retreat has always been beautiful about this. They bought right into the idea that while you know, they're paying The frame. This is really about information and education. And we need both of those things in abundance right now. So let's begin with the crisis descends upon us all, and what things occurred immediately and have been occurring within retreat as a result.
A lot of things have changed. I mean, look, the whole world has changed since March, where this has been brought to everyone's attention this, as you said earlier, the virus it's called now, it's kind of got a crazy moniker the virus, but it's changed the way a lot of people do business, obviously, in our industry. You know, you have to understand that addiction and mental health disorders Don't go away because of a virus. Sometimes they're exasperated because of this, and people suffer a lot of different mental health break down because of, of being isolated and being quarantined for such a long period and uncertainty brings a lot of anxiety into people's lives that anybody, not just people are suffering from mental illness. But, you know, anxiety is a lot of things to our psyche and makes us do things sometimes without even thinking about it, how detrimental it is to our safety into our health. What we've done is, you know, we change the way we do business, especially on the outpatient side. So, the outpatient side, we couldn't have patients coming in daily because we can't monitor who they're around because as we, as we know now, how this is discussed is it's almost like you got to track history of people before you can even talk to them. So being on an outpatient basis, we don't know where patients have been, you know, an hour before that cut costs. So we launched telemedicine which has been very successful and in reaching people, people have found it to be a easy way to get help and, and, and get on the right track and, and stay on the course that was set out for them on the inpatient side, the inpatient side hasn't changed, other than how we do business on the inpatient side and how we, how we screen for new patients coming in how we treat new patients, when they come in, what we've done with the patients that are there to make everything safe. Our first priority has always been the safety of our patients. And our staff. You know, we have some amazing staff, people, especially essential staff who, you know, this, they haven't been off from work from this, they've gone to work every single day, they've done what they had to do. And they made sure that our patients get the services that they need. And that's, you know, a big kudos. You know you hear about heroes of nurses and people in the front line. And that's what we have. Yeah, we have nurses, we have doctors, we have therapists we have all these positions and dietary that are transportation is continuing to pick people up who are sick and need our help. These people did not waver, they came to work, they did their job putting themselves in harm's way. I mean, I mean, that's, you know, the uncertainty is, we don't know what it is. We don't know anything, you know. So it's, you know, being that professional and that dedicated to what you do put yourself in harm's way to make sure that people get what they need. Is is inspirational at least Yeah, you know, we've done many things to make sure that people are safe. That's our priority.
Well, very early on in the crises. We had your Melissa Callahan. Melissa is your head of nursing and just an absolutely amazingly dedicated and competent healthcare professional. She also is your go-to infectious disease person she along with you know, the rest of your staff really mounted a very aggressive program in the earliest days of the, of the virus. I mean, you had this unique situation, it's easy to see how you would handle the outpatient thing. But in a residential context, you know, you had similar situations that we see turning out very badly and other residents, long term residences that you had to lockdown. What are some of those early steps that you guys initiated in the residential aspect of this thing to make sure that people that you had under your care were safe?
Again, just what you said about Melissa has done an amazing job. Melissa has guided us on the medical side of what we should do and what we shouldn't do so you know, that's been very very helpful. You know, when it first came to this and learned about this disease, we had to do things on the fly, but there's no one really on understood what it was about. So the thing about social distancing and things like that, what we made a conscious decision to do with patients better theirs have like less people in the cafeteria one time, we closed down the fitness centers. People come in one two a room for 48 hours. Before they come in, we do a three phase assessment by medical providers, and that includes being on camera so they can see them. So it's not just talking on the phone. So there's a lot of things and a lot of effort made to make sure that people are going to be safe. Not only people coming into people there and the people that work there so it was, it was a lot of different components moving components to make this work. And I think we did a really good job. Yeah, I'm really proud of the way everyone did it.
Well, yeah, because it alerted to the interest. parties that despite this, you know, it's life-changing event that if you needed help, there were safe places, if they're doing things right, where you could still go get the treatment you -- I'm sure their immediate reaction for a lot of people was, well, I'm gonna have to put off my, you know, my treatment till this thing is over that's not the case if the facility is ahead of the curve on this one. You know, I tell people lots of times when they have questions about getting, you know, getting into treatment, and what to expect. I said, Look, one of the things that seem to me to be really important is whoever you get in front of when you're looking for treatment, whether it's mental health or substance abuse, that first point of contact with them, the intake portion is really important. You should pay attention to the kind of questions they ask you because that'll give you an idea of how comprehensive and thorough they are. Your intake is changed immediately when somebody shows up and says they need help. You take temperatures you do all that stuff, right?
It's much more comprehensive than just show up. They call us for either a pickup or someone's going to drop them off. We do a face to face on FaceTime or eight by eight or zoom where we see the patient and we get the vital information that we need to make a decision you know, again you know it's not 100% effective but it sure cuts down on a lot of the stuff that could be happening. So you know, we really make a concerted effort to make sure that when people who are coming in that they're okay I mean, you know, I have you know, almost 600 and staff I have to protect and all the patients better than air. So, you know, I got to make sure that we have everything in place that's going to make sure and keep the safety of the people who are going to be there.
Well, you know, as a CEO of a large company. You have mentioned more than once now about the preparations regarding the safety not only of your clients, and patients but also of your staff to all And I see a lot of news stories about this rush to open up, which is business, which is understandable. But they seem to be thinking in terms only of while the customers, you know, have to be made to feel safe. And you got to start with your staff, don't you no matter what business you're in,
Of course, I mean, you know, first of all, if your staff is not well and sick, you're not a business. So there, there needs to be a priority when you're thinking about safety. And when you're thinking about the safety of staff, I mean, it's inevitably going to pass down to the safety of patients. So, you know, our priority has always been, you know, we need to keep everybody safe at all costs. So that's what we did. And then when we've been, you know, knock load was very successful.
Well, as you mentioned, the beginning of this, this disease and this and this crisis has touched upon every aspect of life and business in the country, in many ways similar across the board, but in certain cases, things are a bit different, and certainly in the behavioral health field, there are a couple of unique circumstances that impact what you do. I'm thinking in terms of the consequences of this thing. In the beginning, I said there may have been people who gradually said, Well, this isn't the time to try to get treatment. They need to be dissuaded of that. What are we hearing now about things like relapse rates of overdose rates? We're not hearing much about that. Is it? Is it getting worse or what?
Well, it's like this. We know what isolation does to people. You know, it's not something that is it's a new science we've, we've known that for forever that isolation, especially with people who suffer from some form of mental health disorders, it's not good for them. Now, when you're talking about patients, they call us to come in. We're not seeking patients to come in. So when they call us, obviously there's a problem. We need to discuss it. We need to make sure They feel comfortable and coming into the facility there to help them. You know, we don't have statistics yet on what's going on in the last couple of months on overdoses and things like that, but you hear about them all the time. It's not something that's gone away, it's not something that's going to go away. So it's uncharted waters that we're all in. We don't see any kind of outcome yet. We are seeing a lot of positive outcomes in telemedicine because of retention and people being part of it and, and going to it so that's a positive. You know, people need to be engaged in treatment. So, any positive way we can do that as a plus, and unfortunately telemedicine is not approved by any insurance companies or licensed by the states yet. Because it's something so new in our field on a level of service, there are tell us I can tell the medicines for, you know, one on ones and things like that, but we're doing groups. So, you know, we put that together in a matter of days. In a matter of days, we went from having an outpatient facility, to opening a telemedicine facility that all of our patients that are there now will have somewhere to go and get treatment. And so, you know, it wasn't an easy task. And technology was involved in that because we needed to figure out how we can reach people how we can get to them, how they can be part of the group. And, you know, we did that relatively quickly and very successful. And it's one of the things that we're very proud of what we do is that our research department is track outcomes and track things that work and don't work. Now. Not everything's a home run. So You know, we need to figure out what's best for people. How are people when this is all over with? You know, it's a new world. I mean, it's not February, you know, it became a new world, on how we do everything and how we live, not just mine, but all business. You know, everyone is afraid. He got a lot of people who were screaming about, you know, the lockdowns and things like that, and everything should be open. And then, you know, there's a lot to be said about that. And a lot of people have opinions. But, you know, if you think rationally and you see, look, I know people who have gotten this and some people who lost family members from it, I've had young relatives who've gotten it and came out of it. Well, I mean, but they said it was a horror. You know, unless you're affected by it personally, you don't think it exists or any? I mean, it is. Some people gotta realize...
Yeah, the other factor I think is and it's perfectly understandable is that everybody frames this in the context of, well, when will things be normal or the way they were and you couldn't be more correct that we've got to dissuade ourselves of the notion that there's any going back to the way things I mean, an absolute miracle drug that eradicates this thing. And even then things are going to change. So we just quit waiting for normal to return. I don't think that's going to happen anytime, anytime now.
And even what do you what you said about having a miracle drug or vaccine and I mean, if you know about the flu vaccine, they're a low percentage of most successful I mean, it's built out of nothing because he's dealing from a strain that that, you know, changes from year to year. But I think a positive side of that is teaching people about sanitary and being cleaner and be more conscious of some of our environment and things that we do, you know, they've shown pictures of places in the world. This is not the United States' problem. This is a world that, you know, several months ago, you couldn't even see, you know, a mile from where the picture is. And now it's totally clear. So the pollution and the environment in such a short period of time, because of this quarantining as has cleaned itself up quite a bit. I mean, it's still a long way to go. Yeah. But, you know, maybe we're learning from that. I mean, you know, there was a shooting yesterday in a mall and in Arizona, Sara, this is back to usual. You know, we don't want that. We want to be some of this is going to find some positive change. And that's what we need to do. I mean, we need to look at where the positives are. Everyone could look at negatives and find something negative, but that's not going to help anything. Let's look where the positives, how do we make ourselves better? How do we help those who need help? And that's what we're going to be here to do. And that's all of us. That's not just for my industry. This whole world has changed drastically in the last couple of months. I don't know if it's brought us closer together yet. I mean, it's too early to tell what's going on but there's a big change.
Well, you know what there whether it ultimately becomes a beneficial catastrophe or good things come out of it or not, it's totally up to us. Peter Schorr founder and CEO of retreat behavioral health is hanging with us on the Behavioral Corner.
Retreat Behavioral Health, we believe in the power of connection and quality care. We offer a comprehensive, holistic, and compassionate treatment from industry-leading experts. Call 855-802-6600 and begin your journey today.
Welcome back to the Behavioral Corner this week is Peter Schorr. Peters are our partner as I told you many times today, the retreat behavioral health, which he is the founder and CEO of is the underwriter of the program. And Peter joins us from time to time, as do many of his managers and as clinicians and expert people when we need to get really good information, I can assure you of that information we try to provide you is almost always the right stuff. That's our intent. Anyway, Peter. Let's now peer into the crystal ball and try to figure out how something is important as our behavioral health and the choices we make in the kind of whole lives we want to lead is going to be impacted by the virus. We spent a lot of time in the first segment Talking about the changes and they're going to be a lot of them. But with regard to telemedicine, which, like everything else, that we read stories about the end of the office, nobody will be going into the office and now, now we're talking about telemedicine. You don't have to go see your doctors as often and all that. I wonder about some of that I am struck a blow by something you said with regard to the insurance companies and why they are not apparently not paying the same manner they would if you were getting counseling or treatment in person over the telephone or over the internet. Why is that?
Well, I can't speak for other people. I mean, what, let me explain how this works. First of all, telemedicine in our industry. There is no licensing yet for our levels of service or outpatient. Like we do partial hospitalization, I LP, telemedicine was set up for you know, one on one counseling, but now in this when this happened Then, you know, you have thousands and thousands of people that utilize outpatient services, that where they're going to go. So the state and the insurance companies, you know, said, Alright, we're going to allow you to do that now. But when this is over, you know, it doesn't exist right now because there's no licensing for it. So what we've done is, is in our research department is start to track outcomes, to come up with some research on how this works, and why it would be important that it continues. So right now, it's a lot of uncertainty when it comes to telemedicine, telemedicine is, in my opinion, a very effective way to treat people who are in rural areas that can't normally go to a brick and mortar facility. People who have disabilities that you know are not mobile and they can't get to a brick and mortar facility. So there's a lot of positives and yeah, and You know, but we have to, again, you know, it's a, it's very early on in this, that we need to track the outcomes and find out what's going on and what kind of successes were having, and make sure that this is sustainable and something that, that, you know, the insurance companies will get behind. Yeah. And the states have to get behind that the states have to, you know, come to some agreement and some kind of, you know, they don't have a right now is how do they like, yeah, how do they license that, you know, you're not going to license someone because, you know, you got to be careful about different states. So if I'm in Pennsylvania, I'm a licensed clinician in Pennsylvania, is someone calling me from Kentucky and I'm giving them services and I could go it, and that's not fair to the people who are licensed in Kentucky, right. You know, so they have to come up with some kind of formula on how they can make this, you know, equitable and make it fair to to everybody. It's not an easy task.
Yeah. So this is not the knee jerk reaction, oh, those miserable insurance companies. This is I hear you saying that it's incumbent upon health and healthcare providers to prove that telemedicine is efficacious. It works. And that's going to take a little time, who would seem to the insurance company would be delighted if you can prove that telemedicine has a legitimate and functional role going forward across a range of services, that if that keeps people healthier, that's going to benefit to the insurance company anyway.
Of course, insurance companies are looking for ways to get the cheapest treatment they possibly can and be most effective at which it's a business. And we understand that you know, and it's our job to give them statistics to show what works and what doesn't work. Because, you know, insurance companies, as far as I know, don't own facilities. They're you know, the insurance providers, and they, and they, and they pay for a service. But you know, how they gather information, who they gather with, is anyone's guess. You know, it's something that we need to be, you know, in front of it and really get to them and get them what they need to make a decision. Yeah, in my opinion, I think it's something that has a definite purpose. And I think they have to just work out some of the semantics and I think they will I don't think it's that difficult. I think, you know, it should be a state by state basis. But, you know, then then I think you'll have a really important tool for people themselves well.
Yeah, it's like anything else. It has to be standards, they have to be measurable...
There are no sound criteria for telemedicine yet. Yep, nothing like that exists. So it's hard for them to have any kind of real estate back at it until we give them all that.
In that context, people would be advised that in spite of the fact that there's going to be a future for telemedicine right now, they should be very conscientious about believing some of the things you read. I mean, I read an article the other day, about a whole slew of apps that are being developed that alleged to be able to help you with things like you know, your substance abuse treatment, your mental health counseling. Yeah, we have to be careful about buying into that wholesale right away.
You don't want any snake oil salesmen telling you they, you know, this is your answer. This is what's gonna make everything okay. We had that years ago with pain medications and look where it led us. So we need to be careful about the things that we do, and have some research behind them and not have someone new in their basement, come up with some, some "fakakta" formula says this is gonna cure everything right? And just look at your app for 20 minutes a day, you'll be fine.
You'll be okay. Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you about your staff. And with regard to the technology going forward and the change and how these behavioral health services are provided, what have you had to institute new training methods? Are they learning on the fly as well?
When we had our executive retreat, the first week in January, one of our goals for 2020 was to utilize technology in all aspects of what we do not just, you know, on the phone, but, but a lot of different things we do. Come March who knew that we'd have to utilize it and become experts in it in a matter of days. You know, we just signed on to this new phone system, eight by eight, which is a lot like zoom, huh? Yeah, but it's more proprietary. No, it was a little easier. I've had 80 people at a meeting. And looking at everyone talking everyone, it's great. You know, we all had to grow with it, we all had to learn how to use this technology because it's new. It's not something anyone's used before. The world has gotten more tech-savvy, you know, with all these zoom things in this and that it's, you know, and now, what we've what we're trying to use in technology is not only on that basis but to you know, to have a patient's day to become as productive as we possibly can to get them engaged as much as we can. So there are certain things that we're trying and technology's definitely a plus for us in doing that. So, yeah, I mean, it kind of thrust us quicker than we thought we would be. But, you know, I think that the staff did an amazing job. Understanding what the technology was, how do we utilize technology, and what would be best for our patient? They hit it out of the park and you and you are and you're confident as you've already said that there is going to be a big and important role in telemedicine, telemedicine going forward. The sort of unique circumstance of substance abuse or behavioral health facility is that the one thing that really strengthens the effect of that is connection and community and people being together. And now, of course, we're told that you can't do that. So telemedicine can be a great bridge through the period of time when we have to be a part but in a much more important sense. We have to be together. So telemedicine can really play a role right now in that.
And I don't know if you've done it with your family, I know a lot of families that are like on holidays where we did you know 25 people zoom meeting and you know, it's Nothing, you know, when we thought about telemedicine people think of it as just being on a telephone. And, you know, it's much more interactive than that. It's actually seeing people up on the screen. You know, really, yeah. Part of something. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's something that I think is going to be here to stay. I think it's something. Look, we're always looking for, again, it's not just my industry, it's, it's the society, in general, is always looking to simplify and make things easier for us. And I think that you know, not having to drive somewhere and to be able to do what you do is a plus. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely a plus. I mean, there gonna be times though, where, you know, one of the issues is, especially on the outpatient side, you know, you're on the honor system on whether you've been using a knot. You can't do a urine test through a phone, but there's, there are ways We'll work through that. And we'll come up with some great ideas and, and how people can we can utilize local labs or something like that where people can go get tested, and we can get the results right away. Yeah, there's a lot of ways we can do it.
I'm like you in that regard. And, you know, I don't certainly don't know what the future holds completely. But I'm really optimistic about some of this stuff. You've touched upon a lot of it because it just seems so obvious that failure is not an option. It is just not an option. So...
Failure is death in our business. It's not It's not an option. So well, you know, people can throw you know, bricks in the road and, and try to throw things in the way of, of getting things done and, and everyone can find a negative in anything, but there are a lot of positives and we have to look at the positives and how we can give not just better treatment but just to get to people and get treatment, because you know how many people fall through the wayside? If they're saying that 10% of our population in the United States suffers from some form of addiction, not necessarily substance abuse, but that's 30 something million people. Now, you know, the deduct that by 60%, that that's still, you know, almost 20 million people. Where are those people tell me, then I get that I go to treatment, that's for sure. We don't have that kind of capacity in this country, but they're not going anywhere because then they don't understand where to go. So now if you make it easier for them to get treatment, we can save a lot more lives.
Yeah, absolutely. Peter, you know, again, it's always great to have you on the program. We appreciate it. You know, as we said, it's the BehavioralCorner. It's where we like to think healing can happen. We hang here and we talk about things and just wanted to know you saw this story but I want to share it with you because It has to do with the way people behave, and just want to get people's insight on this and what they think. So you're driving down the road as this Virginia family was a couple of days ago, just to get out of the house, they're going to go for a ride. And they see two bags in the road, they try to avoid hitting them, they run them over, they get out because who'd left these two bag bags in the road, say, good people, they don't want to litter, they throw the bags in the back of the truck, they're gonna throw more than they get home, and they get home and find $1 million in cash in the bags. Okay. Now, the obvious question is, oh, they call the police, by the way instantaneously and said we found this money. So the obvious question is would you do that? I mean, would that be your first instinct to, to call the police?
That would be my first instinct. I and again, I, you know, I may be in a different economic situation.
Yeah, but you could still use it. You can still use a million dollars.
It's not the point. The point is, there's a lot of things that could be something that fell off a truck, that could be a lot of people's money. It could be something illegal, which could be even worse. And then you get caught in that. It could be a Saturday, there's a lot of different things Big brother is watching I always look at now and someone's watching you, right? And you know, you don't want to get caught doing something wrong. So, you know, these are the things we teach people about consequences. And one of the things that we teach people is that all of your actions have consequences. And, you know, good bad or indifferent consequences or consequences. So, if something you think you have a million dollars in cash, you think you're gonna go you know, spend a million dollars in cash somewhere. Now, it's not it doesn't work like that. I mean, it let's, let's be realistic, a million dollars in cash is not something easily too high. There's a lot of things that you're dealing with and one of them is guilt.
That's why I raised it as kind of a thought experiment because what we're going with Explore here on this program is how our behavior affects our health and well being. And unless you're a complete sociopath, if you fool around with that money in any way, shape, or form, it's not going to be good for you.
No. The guilt remorse and you're gonna feel from that as is not you're not gonna enjoy that million dollars. Peter Schorr...
...hopefully, you get a reward. Yeah, a couple of bucks anyway. Peter Shor founder, CEO, and our great partner with Retreat Behavioral Health. We thank you so much for your time, and of course, be safe, and come back on a corner with this any old time Peter.
Steve, you take care, keep safe. Everyone out there, just keep safe, you know, be smart on all your actions. And you know, this has not gone away just so close or opening places. You know, it's a new world how we live in this safe space and just watch what you doing.
Yeah, we're in this for the long haul. Peter Schorr, thanks for joining us on Behavioral Corner.
That's it for now. And make us a habit hanging out at the behavioral corner. And when we're not hanging, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter on the Behavioral Corner.
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