The Let's Get Comfy Podcast
Hosted by Founder and CEO of Comfort Measures Consulting LLC, Norman Harris. The Official Healthcare Edutainment station. Empowering listeners with the knowledge and resources to age comfortably. The podcast platform will uniquely provide laughter, peace, joy, resources and most of all COMFORT. Fostering professional partnerships and engaging the audience by providing them access to a REAL family-like conversation. That gives them the REAL reasons. Connects them to REAL reliable resources. To get REAL results. For REAL Comfort! Through interviews with C-suite healthcare leaders, experts, caregivers, founders, authors, educators, and thought leaders who are doing incredible work for older adults, family caregivers, and the healthcare community.
The Let's Get Comfy Podcast
Behavioral Health Heroes: Inside CHE's 31-Year Journey
CHE Behavioral Health Services provides mental health support to seniors in skilled nursing facilities through a holistic, client-centered approach that addresses past trauma and current challenges. Their 31-year expertise helps facilities meet compliance requirements while delivering compassionate care through psychiatry and psychology services.
• Dr. Phyllis Kennedy Howell (National Clinical Director of Psychiatry) and Heidi Rogers (Regional Director of Operations) describe CHE's comprehensive behavioral health services
• CHE serves psychiatry and psychology populations in skilled nursing facilities, focusing on CMS guidelines and quality measures
• Early signs of mental health conditions include changes in environment, mental status, physical status, and seasonal transitions
• Childhood trauma often resurfaces during senior years when people have more time to reflect on memories
• CHE offers services to skilled nursing facilities, rehab centers, assisted living facilities, and PACE adult day programs
• The organization provides outpatient mental health services for facility residents and their family members
• Understanding your own mental health and knowing when to seek help is crucial for everyone
• Client-centered care ensures mental health interventions meet individual needs rather than following rigid templates
Visit www.cheservices.com to learn more about their services.
Welcome to the let's Get Comfy podcast. And yes, we're in Orlando, florida, at the Florida Healthcare 2025 Annual Conference and Trade Show, and I have some wonderful, magnificent guests with us today from CHE Behavioral Health Services. Thank you, ladies, for joining us on the platform, but, as tradition, one thing I always do I always let the guests introduce themselves. I always say healthcare workers and professionals don't like talking much about themselves, but I'm going to let you kick it off.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm Dr Phyllis Kennedy Howell. I am the National Clinical Director of Psychiatry. I am a nurse practitioner and I have my doctorate degree.
Speaker 1:All right, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 3:And I'm Heidi Rogers. I'm the Regional Director of Operations. I oversee Florida and Tennessee.
Speaker 1:All right, thank you. Thank you both for joining the platform. Give you a round of applause for joining us Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:Yes, ma'am, yes, ma'am. So 60-second pitch, Dr Howell, on CHE, its origins. And who do you serve?
Speaker 2:All right. So CHE has been in business for 31 years, so we serve the psychiatry and psychology population for mental health and skilled nursing facilities. So we particularly look for things like CMS guidelines, gradual dose reductions, compliance, quality measures all of those things that will help our residents have a much better mental health outcome and make sure that they have the things that they need when it comes to their mental health there in the skilled nursing world. Okay, so what's your role with CHE? So I am the National Clinical Director of Psychiatry. I oversee the nursing nurse practitioners that go into the facilities and I also take care of any of our education and compliance stuff that happens to do with psychiatry.
Speaker 1:All right, all right, all right. That's a wonderful introduction to CHE and yourself, ms Rogers. Tell us who you are, ma'am, and your role with CHE, behavioral Health Services as well.
Speaker 3:So I'm the Regional Director of Operations. And what that looks like for Florida and Tennessee we have several buildings. And what that looks like for Florida and Tennessee we have several buildings and I'm responsible for making sure that we have the right fit for providers, making sure that even having that relationship with facilities, so that we are making sure that they have the right in services, the right groups and every facility needs to be tailored differently. And as a regional director, I need to know my facilities up and down the coast.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 3:I'm partnering them with the right providers, services and even making sure that we provide them with the right care in terms of clinical operations as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so your role as regional director of operations and your role as clinical leader how do you guys collaborate to ensure better patient outcomes?
Speaker 2:Okay, so for Heidi and I we collaborate in a way from the clinical lens and clinical standpoint. I used to be an operator, so I used to be a regional director for Georgia and so I'm able to guide Heidi in some direction and operations. But my main role is to help her guide her in the right directions in facilities with her clinicians that she has there to support them, and to in the right directions in facilities with her clinicians that she has there to support them and to support the roles that they have with the facilities. As Heidi mentioned, we do in-services, so I do a lot of those in-services to help the facility staff understand the mental health care of patients and how that reflects those residents as they are going through the different changes in their life.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's amazing. All right From a stigma standpoint. Of course, mental health is a big topic today, as it should be, but also behavior health as well. What are some stigmas associated with mental health conditions? You'd say.
Speaker 3:So I often hear, especially with my background as an occupational therapist, from that demographic. They're always saying I you know there's a stigma behind losing their independence, not wanting to get crazy and not being able to advocate and be happy. And that's the beauty of psychotherapy, is that not only do we give them that outlet to be able to talk about feelings, we also give them the strategies to be able to deal with those things. But also our in-services, with our staff and facility, let's them see trigger points and signs in those residents so that we can come together and have a holistic approach.
Speaker 1:I love that. What are some early signs you think you can identify for, let's say, a skilled nurse facility? A new admit comes into the facility may not have the, I guess history right. What are some early signs of mental health conditions that a loved one can monitor whether a patient is in skilled nursing or at home receiving care?
Speaker 3:So I always like to say it's changes, whether it's a change in their environment, change in mental status, physical status, even changes in seasons, because then when you're in the but holidays are always going to bring out those red flags. So you should be perked up to notice like, okay, as soon as a person moves into a new facility, there should be a baseline drawn right then and there, because that's a really big change in their life. So that's one of those tricky points that you're going to see, and anytime you're having us come in and do those assessments, it gives you that baseline. So if you're starting to see those changes, we can always go back to the beginning and let you know where they're starting and where they are now and how we can impact them with therapy.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful, good, good. So, dr Howell, I want to ask you my pastor said something before. He said he believes that 70% of mental health or behavioral health issues stem from childhood trauma or experiences. What's your thoughts on that topic?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Everything that happens to you in your childhood can always rear its head in your adulthood and really in between those childhood and adulthood. But when you become a senior, those things come back to you because you have memories and sometimes that's all you have is memories. So you go back and you look at those traumas and you kind of think about them and all you have is time. At this point, when you're in your senior years, you're thinking about all the things I could have done, or all the things I didn't do, or all the things that happened to me. So the one thing I can say about CHE is that I love the fact that we look at those things. We look at the trauma that they went through in their childhood, in their adulthood, and then we look for ways to help them not be re-traumatized in their senior years.
Speaker 1:Wow. So from an onboarding standpoint, if you're onboarding a new facility, have a new partner, what's sort of your process that sort of make it a seamless you know a streamlined all the processes in regards to onboarding. Sort of, make it a seamless you know a streamlined all the processes in regards to onboarding, but make it seamless for the facility as well.
Speaker 2:So we do our very best to make sure that we are meeting the things that they need in their facilities. So we come in and we educate them on our processes. But we also understand what the processes are for the facilities, what their regulations are and what those things that they need for us to meet those regulations. Our compliance department and our programs here at CHE we are very much in tune with what CMS regulations are. So we know what the facilities are looking for and we have compliance and quality that also helps us with those things. We have a huge quality department that helps us with compliance and making sure that we're doing the right things so that the facilities will be doing the right things.
Speaker 1:So, Ms Rogers, do you guys only partner with just facilities, skilled nursing facilities, or is it ALFs you tell them?
Speaker 3:We do so. We actually work with quite a few skilled nursing facilities, facilities, rehab facilities and assisted living facilities as well, and we actually work with an organization called PACE, where they have adult date programs. It's really nice that we're able to go in there to their adult date programs and be able to even give that component of outpatient therapy as well. So the family knows that we're in there and we get the family opportunity to partner with us as well.
Speaker 2:That's really good, yeah, the other part of that too is in our we have an outpatient program, so we have psychiatry and psychology for outpatients. So maybe the family members going through a really hard time putting their loved one in a nursing home that's a very difficult decision for people to make, so sometimes they may need that mental health care and we do provide that on our outpatient program.
Speaker 1:That's really good. I love the fact you guys do outpatient for sure, I think, with evolutionary health care, that's one thing, a growing area for us. We look at things holistic as well, but you go into these facilities a lot of times. They want you to follow the patient once they discharge back home. So that's something that we're growing and we're going to be providing here soon as well. So this platform is all about knowledge and resources. What knowledge and resources for the everyday person you guys can share today? Just give us, let's say, two.
Speaker 2:All right. So knowledge would be understanding your own mental health, understanding where you are with your mental health and knowing that it's OK to get help when you need help and it's OK to be strong when you need to be strong.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's really good.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to come from a different standpoint. I think it's important as a person on the outside If you're going to be a mental health advocate, make sure that you're always keeping it to be client-centered, make sure you're caring them, especially in the facilities. Everyone wants to go in and give their own template, and the director of nursing wants to do it this way.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 3:Nobody's taking into account what the patient needs and wants, and that's the biggest part about psychotherapy is that we are client-centered at the base of it, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Person-centered care.
Speaker 1:Great answer. I'll say that I'm sold. I'm sold. So theme song CHE what would be your theme song? Either one of you can respond to that for the organization as a whole.
Speaker 3:So it was so funny. When we saw that question, we posted to our group and we all came on lean on me.
Speaker 1:Lean on me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, because not only do we want the residents and the families to lean on us, but we also need the facility to lean on us. I love that we play a huge role in like making sure that their state audit goes well. So lean on us well. So lean on us trusting that our professionals are high quality providers and that you lay that in our lap and lean on us.
Speaker 2:And we got it and then, when you get done having to lean on us, we want to give you the tools where you can be successful and lean on yourself a little bit. I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. So last final question All right, dr Howell, you're a Georgia Bulldog fan.
Speaker 3:I am, I'm a.
Speaker 1:Florida State, Seminole yeah, I am. So you tell me what's your expectations on the season this year?
Speaker 2:National championship Abby National championship. Yeah, go Dawgs, right Go Dawgs.
Speaker 1:Go Dawgs, all right. Well, go Noles, actually.
Speaker 2:Go.
Speaker 1:Gators.
Speaker 3:Go Gators.
Speaker 1:Go Rattlers too. Yeah, so thank you all for doing the platform. If you will let the audience know where they can find you, your website, all the information to share as well. Any final message to the audience as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I just want to say that my final message for you all is take care of your mental health. Make sure that you talk about it it's OK, it's not. It's not one of these things that if you talk about it, it's, it's a bad thing. I want you to make sure that you're asking for help when you need help and then the way that you can get us. We have a website it's wwwcheservicescom, and we're ready to help and we're ready to make sure these facilities have what they need and that they have the successful need and that they have the successful mental health that they, you know, need for their residents and the care that they deserve well, yes, well, any final message for you.
Speaker 3:So I always like to say I don't. There's a lot of psych groups out there and I don't know if it could go wrong with any of them, but I know how you can go right in the cag we've been in the business for 31 years.
Speaker 1:You're selling now.
Speaker 3:Our chief director of compliance and quality assurance. She started off as a provider and she's been here for 18 years, and so we're not creating new ideas. We are building the blueprint that we've already had for 31 years. So that's why you come to a trusted provider that you know have been across the nation with services and we are built on providing good, compliant care, not just numbers, and coming in your building.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'll tell you what y'all have me sold. Thank you for joining us. I'm so grateful you joined the platform. Thank you Special shout out to our sponsor, evolutionary Healthcare, cmc Media, lesson Comfort Podcast, che Behavioral Health Services. Check us out, thank you, thank you All right, y'all killed it.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it. Yes, ma'am, y'all killed it. Take your show. This episode of let's Get Comfy was brought to you by Evolutionary Healthcare. Caring is what we do.
