Valor Health Solutions helps mental health with ketamine treatments, therapy

Valor Health Solutions is taking new steps into treating mental health struggles. The business's team of psychiatrists, therapists and specialists are pairing ketamine treatments with mental health services, such as therapy and wellness solutions. "How ketamine in therapy works is it opens the pathways and the doors that have been closed for a long time," said Natalie Calcott, licensed clinical social worker and director of therapy for Valor. "A lot of times, through the ketamine experience, they're able to have a different perspective. That can be extremely valuable, especially for our veterans." Calcott said the ketamine treatments were not meant to replace traditional services to help mental health struggles, such as going to therapy or other medications. Rather, the treatments were meant to work in tandem with other forms of aid. Valor Health's website also states the IV ketamine treatments are designed to help "access deeper emotional insight, relief, and healing with safety at the center." The Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy pairs the treatment with therapeutic support, with a therapist helping a patient work through their thoughts and emotions. "Ketamine is best used when coupled with therapy and coupled with these other forms of treatments," Calcott said. "We're not a replacement for all these different things. We're a wonderful coupling to the things people are already trying – traditional therapies, traditional medications – so we can just come in and help support, and lead to better outcomes for them." Nikki Roberts, family nurse practitioner and director of clinical services for Valor, said Valor's ketamine infusions are used to help treat depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. She added patients do have to try other medications before qualifying for ketamine treatments, but the success rate for improving a patient's well-being has been high. "It's very safe and it's got a fast half-life," Roberts said. "So, patients can be in a disassociated state, and then when the infusion is done, within minutes they're back to their normal state with minimal side effects. It improves mood, it reduces suicidal ideation, it improves emotional flexibility and definitely improves pain control. Each patient's results vary, but I've been doing this for over three years, and I see about a 70 to 80% success rate with it." Valor's veteran demographic is also a targeted audience for the treatments. Roberts said a partnership between Valor and the Mountain Home VA Medical Center is in the works to provide ketamine therapy to veterans, solidifying a new way for them to obtain therapy and treatment for their mental health struggles. "We're in the process of getting a contract with the VA so that we can become a community care provider," she said. "When they go to psych at the VA, they can outsource to us, and the VA will cover it with their insurance." Valor Chief Executive Officer Wesley Wrather added the contract is projected to be finalized within the next 30 days and said the goal with partnerships like with the VA is to continue building connections to share the benefits of Valor's services. "In healthcare, unlike some other industries, we really all should be supporting the individual," Wrather said. "We want to be an additional tool and a resource to really anybody that will understand the benefits of these treatments. That's really what we've been doing really this past month – it's just been making connections, having conversations and meeting with, at this point I'd say, hundreds of providers just to get that message out there." Calcott added the treatments also benefit veterans through creating a safe environment with every patient helped by the ketamine. "Veterans are such an important population and such a special interest of all of ours, and treating the community as a whole and extending a service out into the community is better for our veterans," she said. "A healthy community for them means that they're going to have better support [and] healing ripples. We can permeate into the community and create better mental health and better wellness in general – that also serves our vets." For Calcott and Roberts, they said their goal working for Valor is to serve as many people as they can with the treatments and help with a person's mental and physical well-being. For Wrather, the business's goal is to give patients the chance to find beneficial services that positively impact their lives long-term. "At the end of the day, we want to be able to get this intervention out there and to genuinely help as many people as possible," he said. "[This is] not a business where we bring people in and we want to have people in our care indefinitely – we really want these people to come in and make outcomes, and then go live a fulfilling life."