Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015

Community Agency Project

Richard Maas, MBA, MBHA, MMFC, LPCS
Behavioral Health Manager of Operations
Novant Behavioral Health
June 20, 2015

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015
The Mission of the Agency: Novant Behavioral Health, Forsyth
Novant is unique when it comes to its mission for their clients. The model of their
mission is to not only focus on a mission statement, but to also combine said mission
with vision and values. As Richard Maas, director of operations and manager at Novant
Behavioral Health said, we focus on all parts, not just the missionhowever, our
mission statement is to improve the health of communities one person at a time. We are
very patient centric in our services that we offer to the community. I found this response
very humbling and valiant; I love the idea that their services are broad enough for large
communities, but are still able to focus on the individual and provide care diligently for
all.
The Organizational Structure of the Agency:
The leadership of the behavioral health out patient office is under the direction
supervision of BH (behavioral health) director Dr. Clark who is stationed at Forsyth
Hospital nearby. There is a BH Manager of operations who located on site which is
Richard Maas, LPCS. There is also a clinical Supervisor on site, Susan Doub. At Novant
BH we manage two service lines for the community: the day hospital services, which
comprises of mental health partial hospitalization program, MH (mental health) intensive
outpatient program, substance abuse comprehensive out patient treatment, and substance
abuse intensive OP

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015

program. Personnel involved in the day hospital services: receptionist, three therapists
(LCSWs), one psych Registered Nurse (RN) and the leaders listed above (Richard and
Susan). Personnel involved in behavioral health out patient services: triage and
assessment team (three therapists and nurses on staff at all times), this service is offered
24/7 to the community. Four services in this department: face to face assessments, mobile
assessments in the community, tele-assessments (Rowan and Thomasville County
Emergency Departments) and the behavioral health call center (all services listed also
offered 24/7 to the community). I love the fact that a lot of their services were offered
24/7 for their clients and that they even offered help to different counties around the
surrounding area. They are making assessments, care and treatment readily available in
every way possible! Newsome & Gladding state that, services should be accessible,
comprehensive, flexible and assured (Newsome & Gladding, 2014. I feel as if Novant
BH most definitely meets those standards listed above as a community mental health
practice.
The Financial Structure of the Agency:
Support from the day hospital: the day hospital and its services sustains the financial
support for the behavioral health out patient office due to the tele-assessments and the
24/7 call center; they are non-revenue producing services.

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015

Reimbursement for entire office: we bill commercial insurance, medicare, medicaid, and
charity care through Novant Health.
Day to Day financial concerns: as Richard Maas says, our goal is to provide services
that we can consistently bill for each time, to every population within the surrounding
communities.
A General Description of the Clientele Served:
Predominantly we see mental health and substance abuse patients. The age range is about
18 years of age to geriatric populations. Richard comments, We see about an equal about
of male and female patients however, sometimes I feel as we see more female
patients (no firm statistics provided). At Novant Behavioral Health we service every
ethnicity, gender, race, etc. Primarily the diagnosis seen is substance addiction(s),
depression, anxiety related disorders and bipolar disorder. I found it very interesting that
the majority of their patients are substance abuse related cases. While doing my
practicum at this site I was very shocked to see how many individuals often have
comorbid disorders related to substance abuse and depression. This observation has made
me ponder about which came first for some of these clients; the depression then drug use
to self-medicate or drug use first then depressionevery client has a different story on
why they started using, but I find that it is crucial to try to ascertain which disorder took
place first to better their treatment and prognosis.
4

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015

Services offered:
At Novant BH we offer individual counseling with LPCs and our Psychiatrist Dr. Peugh
(who primarily sees substance abuse IOP patients in our program). We are somewhat
limited with our individual services, including families, but we do offer some. Every
Sunday we offer our substance abuse group to invite their families/support systems to
group from 2:00-4:00 pm. Individuals in the program can bring as many individuals as
they like or they can attend on their own. We also offer assessments 24/7 (mobile, tele,
face to face) and our mobile crisis call center (also offered 24/7). According to the text,
individual counseling, group therapy, assessments and psychiatric appointments would be
seen as direct client services (Newsome & Gladding, 2014). The family group session
can be seen as a dual service, conducted for the individual client (direct service) in
addition to the community (their family members/support system). This family group
session is also available to general members of the community who would like to learn
more about substance abuse/addiction and how to locate and obtain services. Lastly, the
BH triage and assessment team does all the charting and documentation for Rowan and
Thomasville county hospital psychiatric patients. This service would be classified as an
indirect service according to the text (Newsome & Gladding, 2014).

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015
Agency Marketing:
As stated by Richard Maas, marketing does not happen very well. Novant BH services
has business development marketing personnel; however, marketing funds are limited
and difficult to ascertain. Primarily Novant BH gets referrals from our own in patient
services and emergency department services. In addition to community resources that
know of our services very well (personal/professional relationships established in the
past). I found it very interesting that Novant, a large corporation, consisting of many
offices, services and facilities did not have better marketing of their services. I was not
too sure if this was strictly a funding issue for this specific branch or if there was
something more going on behind the scenes.
A General Description of the Agencys Personnel:
We have admin specialists (clerical only), LPC, LCSW, Associate LP, Qualified clinical
personnel, RN, PRN and management level leaders (two). The day hospital and triage
team our supported by the service providers that provide medical services called, Novant
Health Psychiatric Medicine, Forsyth. On site this is composed of Dr. Ted Peugh,
Psychiatrist and Stella Walson, Nurse Practitioner. This branch on site also provides telepsychiatry assessments as a service within the triage and assessment team; another
example of direct client services offered and Novant BH.

Current work experiences:

6

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015
Title: Behavioral Health Manager of Operations.
Duties: manage budget, manage personnel, daily operations, explore expansion
possibilities in addition to contributing to Novant Health corporate services dealing with
population health concerns, strictly contributory.
Requirements: promote and maintain financially viable services.
Education: Business Administration Masters, Master of Health
Administration, and Masters in Marriage and Family Counseling and
Counseling Psychology; Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor.
Experience: minimum of 5 years of leadership experience. Salary range:
60,000-100,000.00 depending on experience and education background.
Degree of job satisfaction and sources of frustration:
Satisfaction: I love the work that I do, I love being a leader (Richard Maas).
Frustration: Stress in health care right now is insurmountable at times (Richard
Maas). As I experience more time at my practicum site at Novant BH, I have noticed the
stress levels with different therapists rise over time. The MH care reform has caused a lot
more regulations, paperwork, criteria, etc. and sometimes I can see how frustrating it is
for these therapists to provide excellent care while being overloaded with regulations and
paperwork.

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015
Burnout: I have not experienced this yet (Richard Maas). Richard went on to talk
about how he prevents burnout, I have had to be very self-aware and have increased my
self-management to prevent this from happening. Richard discusses how he utilizes his
vacation times and frequently participates in stress reducing exercises during the work
day. I found this very crucial and important for all professionals working within the MH
field.

Mary Catherine Collins

Assignment 6.3
CNS 771 BGSU 2015
June 20, 2015

References
Newsome, D. W., & Gladding, S. T. (2014). Clinical mental health counseling in
community and agency settings (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/
Pearson Education. ISBN: 978-0-13- 285103-9