“I Hope To Not Be Needed In 10 Years”

Not, oh, my God, I should build you a spreadsheet and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Mm hmm.

Yeah, I do think that that is a huge barrier to care also is maybe insurance period, but also the understanding of how to utilize those tools, right? Like if you don't use your insurance except for when you show up to an appointment and you're handing a card over, then you might not really understand all the nuances that come with that, right? So like, maybe if the insurance is saying, no, we can't afford, or we don't wanna pay for that, we don't wanna cover that, then calling that insurance might actually rectify the issue by figuring out what the block is that's preventing them from covering a certain provider, right? It's oftentimes just a phone call and maybe being able to do that phone call or having somebody to help you make those phone calls also can be super beneficial.

Absolutely.

And, and I would love to say that your mental health professional can help you with that.

Um, sometimes they can, and sometimes they can't.

And sometimes they're, they have 50 clients on their caseload and there's 30 different insurances.

Right.

And they don't know all the nuance there, but part of many employee assistance programs is less find this counselor, get this crisis person and do whatever.

And like, help me figure out my insurance.

Where is my HR team? That's literally like what human resources is there for, right? Like, explain to me, help me find my out-of-network insurance benefits.

I found this counselor.

They're open.

They're a good fit.

They don't take my insurance.

Help me figure out what the cost would be if they do.

How can I loop them into Next Run, the Overwatch collective, this and that? And again, sometimes peer support teams or peer supporters need to be able to sit and answer those questions.

It's not always about crisis intervention and, you know, CISM and CISDs and ASAP and things that are really helpful, but it can often be a lot of those tangible pieces as well.

Yes, yes, I agree 100%.

Man, I hate insurance.

It's the worst.

It is.

I hate it more now that I'm a mental health professional than I ever did because it breaks my heart when a client reaches out, especially like we're not getting political today, but in like a really like tough environment, political kind of climate, right? Somebody reaches out and says, Hey, I have a new job and I have this insurance.

And I call their insurance company and their $20 company is 180 bucks a session.

And they're like, Oh, I can't, I can't.