Lionheart Wellness and Recovery, an outpatient treatment center treating mental health disorders and substance use, is set to hire three new therapists, and is currently considering opening a new location.
“We are already outgrowing our space,” said Tiffany Neuharth, founder of Rise Up Recovery and Lionheart Recovery and Wellness.
The business opened its doors in March and quickly ran into the state ratio of one counselor to 16 patients. While Lionheart staff agree that this ratio is useful, in order to treat more patients, the nonprofit had to hire more therapists.
From their still-new office on North Frontage Road, the nonprofit can have two group sessions at a time from their two group therapy rooms.
Those rooms are dominated by a circle of chairs with charts on the walls of circles of feelings, and licenses from staff.
“We want people to come in and feel comfortable and safe,” said Neuharth.
The increase in patients seeking therapeutic treatment in the six months since Lionheart opened is indicative of both the lack of options available to Hastings residents and the level of need in the community.
That lack of options was one of the reasons Neuharth cited for founding Lionheart in the first place. Before Lionheart, the only other location in Hastings for adult outpatient treatment was at Allina Clinic with limited times available. There was previously no options available for adolescent outpatient treatment in Hastings.
The reasons there aren’t more options for therapeutic treatment are multifaceted. Funding is often where the conversation starts.
“If you want to do treatment right, it costs money,” said Lionheart Administrative Manager Dawson Urquidez.
Lags in rate increases for substance use disorder treatment and insurance reimbursement rates have not kept up with new costs and inflation. While last year Minnesota did increase the rates for residential treatment centers, those increases didn’t translate for outpatient treatment centers which left many, including Lionheart, without those additional funds.
A new cost for outpatient treatment centers is the five-fold increase of therapeutic facility licenses which jumped from $500 to $2,500.
“I think its going to inhibit a lot of new centers from starting, especially small mom and pop shops,” said Neuharth. “We wouldn’t have been able to open if that were the case before.”
Other issues to new treatment centers can range from lack of counselors and therapists to the amount of paperwork to lack of support from state and federal partners.
“It’s definitely a hard business,” said Neuharth.
Documentation and state bureaucracy is a doubled-edged sword. It can be important from both a treatment and liability perspective to have detailed notes on a patient, but that tide of paperwork can take counselors away from providing care.
Intake paperwork alone for Lionheart takes 30-45 minutes.
“That’s probably one of the heaviest, biggest heavy pieces of our job is the documentation part,” said Neuharth.
Even state resources that are designed to bring more funding and access to mental health care can come with heavy bureaucratic loads.
For example, Minnesota’s Behavioral Health Fund was created to provide funding for uninsured or low-income individuals in need of treatment. The eligibility for patients was previously determined annually, but in the last year shifted to requiring monthly approval.
“It’s going to be challenging for us because it’s a much heavier paperwork load than if we need to get folks extended [annually] and never is outpatient treatment just a month,” said Neuharth.
Beyond the structural issues of mental health treatment, a relatively new issue in Minnesota is the legalization process of cannabis.
The scramble over the past few years to open dispensaries across the state has been slow, but Hastings has already increased the cap of dispensaries from one to two because of new interpretations of state statute.
“I know they’re looking at dollar signs, and what they’re not looking at is the implications on our community and the reality is that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that addiction is going to increase,” said Neuharth.
According to Neuharth, while cannabinoids and marijuana can be addictive and destructive in their own right, they are often paired with other drugs which can get in the way of the treatment process.
“Someone’s drug of choice may be fentanyl or whatever, but they’re sitting in here and they’re not participating and their care factor is next to none. Why? Because they’re getting high every night,” said Neuharth.
Neuharth doesn’t call legalization a mistake overall; she would have preferred decriminalization with a focus on treatment rather than incarceration.
To that point, the reality of cannabis legalization is nuanced. Both the idea that cannabis is non-addictive natural medicine and it is a rampant destructive drug are misconceptions, according to Neuharth. Because of that nuance, increased education and communication is important throughout the legalization process.
“Where I’m most concerned is where is the messaging” especially with adolescents and family systems, said Urquidez
Several local nonprofits from the Devin J. Norring Foundation to Rise Up Recovery to now Lionheart have experienced difficulty in getting drug education into schools.
Many parents and school administrations have a “strong misconception of if you educate them, that’s going to give them new ideas. The reality is, they would school me. They know more than I do,” said Neuharth.
One avenue for that education is peer mentorship, because the message is often best received when not coming from adults.
Training young people to be peer recovery specialists is an ongoing goal of Rise Up Recovery’s Recovery Coach Academy, which previously worked with former Superintendent Dr. Tammy Champa with a grant Champa wrote to expand peer support services in the community.
While Lionheart Recovery and Wellness continues to grow, new patients are still welcome, and the best way to reach them is simply to call.
Lionheart Recovery and Wellness can be reached at 651-456-8