In this episode, Dr. James Flowers welcomes to the show his fellow founder and Leadership Team at J. Flowers Health Institute. Robbin Mooney, Michael Beard, Dr. Melanie Somerville, and Shay Butts join the show to share the work they each do to make J. Flowers one of the most reputable names in mental health and addiction treatment.

Key Takeaways

01:30 – Dr. Flowers introduces the Leadership Team: Robbin Mooney, Michael Beard, Dr. Melanie Somerville, and Shay Butts

02:36 – Robbin Mooney shares her journey into recovery and mental health care

05:25 – Michael Beard discusses his background as an interventionist and his calming influence on patients

08:27 – Dr. Melanie Somerville reflects on her passion for mental healthcare

11:02 – Chief Experience Officer Shay Butts talks about how she joined the team

16:36 – Comparing traditional approaches to mental health with the J. Flowers method

19:28 – The role of diversity at J. Flowers Health Institute and across Houston

20:13 – Addressing long-term COVID complications at J. Flowers Health Institute

22:01 – Dr. Melanie explains what goes into creating a clear diagnosis

23:26 – Michael speaks to the familial culture fostered at J. Flowers Health Institute

26:18 – Dr. Flowers wraps up by thanking Robbin, Michael, Dr. Melanie, and Shay for joining

LinkedIn Profiles

Robbin Mooney

Dr. Melanie Somerville

Shay Butts

Resources Mentioned

JFlowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com

JFlowers Health Institute Contact – (713) 783-6655

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**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests is their opinion and is not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

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J. Flowers Health Institute Leadership Team – Concierge Healthcare & Building A Familial Culture

Introduction To J. Flowers Health Institute

Always trying to improve my knowledge and skills around that area. It’s really fascinating to work with someone who comes in with seemingly intractable pain. When you help them understand how the brain is creating that pain and how a lot of their life experiences such as trauma can play into their experience of pain, it’s empowering for people to see that they can manage that chronic pain that has really no functional reason for existing. They don’t have an infection, a cancer, a tumor. Any kind of malady, but yet the brain is somehow creating pain for them.

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Welcome everyone to the show. I’m joined by our founders, our partners, and our leadership team. I’m really excited to welcome my founding partner, Robbin Mooney. How are you?

I’m wonderful, thank you.

Good. Michael Beard, my founding partner.

Good morning everyone. Glad to be here.

Glad you’re here. Our clinical director, and chief clinical officer actually, Dr. Melanie Somerville.

Dr. Flowers, nice to be here.

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Our chief experience officer, Dr. Shay Butts.

I play one on TV, but not actually one by training.

That’s right. What we thought we would do, since we started doing this episode, we haven’t really been in the same room together and done an episode together. Shay and I have worked together doing shows. Sometimes Shay is a co-host, and sometimes Shay hosts when I’m not available but she had the wonderful idea of putting us all around the table and letting our readers here and learn a little bit more about each one of us. I’m going to start with my lovely co-founder, Robbin Mooney. Robbin, tell everybody a little bit about your background and what inspired you to do the work that you do in recovery and mental health.

What’s inspired me? I have been working in this industry, mental health and addiction, substance use disorder industry for over 24 years. I actually married into a family that had started a treatment center from 1961-1962 from their home in a little town in Georgia and married into that family and started working at the treatment center. My background was actually entertainment, but marketing and public relations.

I helped out wherever they needed me and moved from working on that project and that company for seventeen years and then moved on to work. Now of course with J. Flowers Health Institute, when you and I founded the company, my job, and my passion was to help to get people to be able to find us through the website and through marketing material, and through my personal relationships that I’ve built through the twenty-something years. My passion is the marketing piece, the business development piece, the public relations to really get the word out on the great work that we do here at J. Flowers Health Institute.

I guess I should say you have done a phenomenal job at doing that.

Thank you.

We love the work that you do. Everybody always says, “James, how did you meet Robbin Mooney?” We met professionally doing conferences together and hosting dinners and hosting events at different conferences around the country. For some reason, our booths were always next to each other. You came to a lot of my lectures and you and I just hit it off and you became my road wife.

Yes, and Dr. Flowers, you have been my road husband for about four years now, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. What really drew me to you and your philosophy was treating the whole person, looking at that 360-degree aspect of discovering, getting to the root cause of what an issue or issue could be, and then treating the whole person. You inspired me through the years and that’s what I really was attracted to is your inspiration and your passion for treating the whole person, not just looking at maybe the psychological piece or the medical piece or the mental health or addiction, but looking at everything, how it all works together. That’s what I think that’s so different for J. Flowers Health Institute.

“You inspired me through the years. What attracted me to you was your inspiration and passion for treating the whole person, not just looking at the psychological or medical piece, mental health, or addiction.”

Yeah, I agree. Thank you so much. I’ll go over to my other co-founding partner, Michael Beard, with who obviously we have a long-standing relationship. Michael, you and I have been doing this together for 22 years now, which is amazing. We started 22 years ago in a little bitty practice together and Montrose working and have really grown both professionally and personally and culminated into J. Flowers Health Institute. You’ve always been such a critical role in whatever practice we’ve done together.

I love the fact that one of the best things about working with you is we work with difficult patients. We work with mental health patients. We work with people with substance use disorder, and medical conditions. When patients are having bad days or patients are being extra difficult, it seems like people run to your office and say, “Michael, come help me. I need you to come help.” What is it about yourself do you think it is that allows you to come out and talk to patients and really just calm someone down and almost act as an interventionist and get them in line per se?

Thank you for saying those kind things about me, James. It has been a 22-year journey to get to where we are today. Speaking of the intervention part, I’ve actually been trained as an interventionist. I think it also comes from just growing up in the family that I grew up in. A lot of empathy for other people. We were taught to really pay attention to what other people are feeling and have a sense of what’s going on with the person. I’m a father figure to a lot of people here at J. Flowers and in treatment centers that you and I have opened and owned.

I’ve always been the dad. dads always have that, can have that loving but stern hand that comes in and says, “No, we’re not going to do that.” I always believed like with my own parents that they always approached us when we were in trouble with love and compassion and why, what’s actually happening that you are behaving the way that you’re behaving. I think that really works in this field because our people are all struggling and sometimes need some good stern a good orderly direction. I think that’s just a role that just naturally fits for me.

“When we were in trouble, my parents always approached us with love and compassion, asking ‘Why? What’s happening that you’re behaving the way you are behaving?’ That really works in this field because our people are all struggling.”

I think it is too. It’s always amazing to me that we have the best clinicians in the world, but when we get letters of thank you from parents, they’re always addressed to Michael Beard and it says, “Michael Beard saved my son’s life. Michael Beard saved my daughter’s life. Thank you, Michael.” What you do here is so critical. I’ve known your family, of course, and been a part of your family for 22 years. That’s exactly right. I think it comes from nurturing your own childhood and your own adulthood and showing unconditional love and patience throughout difficult times. Thank you for what you do here.

You’re very welcome. Thank you, Dr. Flowers.

Melanie Somerville, Dr. Somerville. You and I go way back. Michael as well, the three of us. Not very many people out in the readers probably know this, but your former husband is an anesthesiologist and interventional pain physician who’s one of my best friends and has been a friend of mine for over 20 years and that’s really how I met you in Laredo, Texas, way back many years ago. We worked with a lot of pain patients together. We wanted you to be a part of what we do at J. Flowers Health Institute because of your clinical background and the passion that you bring to healthcare and seeking answers for so many people. Why don’t you tell everybody a little bit about your background and what your passion is in mental healthcare?

Dr. Melanie Somerville On Managing Chronic Pain

My background is like you said, working with Jud, my former husband, in his medical practice. I was a practice administrator and then got really interested in the clinical piece and the psychological part of chronic pain. I went back to school, got my master’s in counseling psychology, and then went back and got my PhD and just really started with him seeing some of the folks in our pain practice and just beginning to understand the nature of chronic pain, which our understanding has changed so much over the last 20 years.

The FMRI is a wonderful MRI that can show where in the brain regions people are experiencing pain. We understand so much more about pain and how the brain creates pain. That has been really exciting for me is just to learn about that. I’m always learning, and always trying to improve my knowledge and skills around that area. It’s really fascinating to work with someone who comes in with seemingly intractable pain.

When you help them understand how the brain is creating that pain and how a lot of their life experiences such as trauma can play into their experience of pain, it’s empowering for people to see that they can manage that chronic pain that has really no functional reason for existing. They don’t have an infection, a cancer, a tumor. Any kind of malady, but yet the brain is somehow creating pain for them. Most often we see this in chronic migraines, chronic back pain, and fibromyalgia, and conditions that. That has been just a huge interest of mine. It’s thrilling for me to be back here working with you and those patients.

“It’s fascinating to work with someone in chronic pain and help them understand how their brain, influenced by life experiences, creates this pain. It’s empowering for people to realize they can manage pain that has no functional cause yet still affects them.”

You do a phenomenal job in the pain world and really the mental health world in general. Thank you for everything you do every day as well. Shay Butz, our chief experience officer, is a therapeutic. Her training background is many things, but one of her specialties is being a therapeutic educational consultant. That, Shay, is how you and I met here at the Houstonian. We had breakfast one morning here at the Houstonian. We weren’t really looking for a staff member, but I was meeting with Shay to say, “Would you mind sending us some patients?”

Long and the short, a show-up at the Houstonian actually didn’t feel well that day. I don’t know if you recall that or not. We’re sitting at the table and two minutes in, I just was in love. I just thought you were amazing and you were your charming self and all of that. I did send you a patient and then I sent you another patient and I sent you some doozies.

Yes, you did.

It was really remarkable to be able to see firsthand the work that was happening here. We started that way and then I came on and started doing some consulting for you and then ended up closing my practice and became a part of this wonderful place. It just really spoke to all of the things that I have so enjoyed through the years doing the program development and just really being able to have a spotlight on what our clients need and what our employees need and making sure that their experience is first-rate is just, it’s thrilling. I love it. I love what I do.

You’re such a critical part of what we do every single day and the way in which our patients are cared for and taken care of and their families and referents and educational consultants and really everyone and making sure you and Michael together really are the people that run the daily operations every day. Thank you both for all of that. I want to throw something out there and anyone can answer this or all of us can answer it. Why Concierge Healthcare? What is it about Concierge Healthcare and J. Flowers Health Institute that sets us apart from a traditional treatment setting?

I can answer that from a clinical point of view. You get the eyes of a lot of expert clinicians. I head up the clinical team. We have a total of eight clinicians. I’m going to speak from the psychological point, they get great medical care, but they get eyes on from really expert folks. Whether it’s a trauma consult, whether it’s psychological testing that we also do in-house. Whether it’s their primary and or secondary therapist, they get a lot of eyes on them and we collaborate every single day and really tease out what’s going on in collaboration, obviously with the medical piece. I’m only speaking to the clinical piece, but they get really the attention and care that you wouldn’t get from any other facility in the world.

I agree with you and I think in traditional Western healthcare, we treat people in silos individually. If Shay’s having a back problem, she goes to see a pain specialist here, an orthopedist over here. If Robbin has a knee problem, she sees an orthopedist here. Some unknown medical issues, we go in different places, but none of those people communicate. We were really built on the idea and the concept of collaboration.

I was just going to say, in addition to that collaboration of the team, which is almost 100 professionals, in addition, we have these eight in-house therapists, but we work with specialized therapists outside and all kinds of medical people. For me as a former consultant, what was so unique about this was that you could come in and just custom craft.

It doesn’t matter how many times somebody has had an evaluation or how many times they’ve been to this doctor, that doctor established clinics all over the United States. They just haven’t gotten the answers. They’ve had symptoms treated. We frequently are seeing those people here because we’ll come in and say, “You need this, but you don’t need that.” We just go through the process of making each touch point that they have unique to them.

I’d like to add too with the concierge approach is when you think of a five-star hotel, they always have someone that’s there and meets the client and accommodates them, meets all their needs, and that’s what we do here as well. We’re able to, like Shay mentioned, we tailor each program for each client. Everybody’s program is custom-built and custom-tailored. We’re able to get them in with the best of the best from the Texas Medical Center and from our amazing team at a moment’s notice. That’s the other piece of concierge I see as immediate action and immediate accommodation to whatever’s happening with the client. It’s hands-on customization and really supporting the client throughout all the way on a one-on-one approach.

“That’s the other part of concierge I see is immediate action and immediate accommodation to whatever is happening with the client. It’s hands-on, customization, and supporting the client throughout on a one-on-one approach.”

Michael, you and I both have worked in traditional healthcare settings. The setting that we’re in today, what do you see is the difference between a traditional approach to mental health and addiction versus our approach to mental health and addiction?

The Benefits Of A Flexible Care Approach

The basis of J. Flowers Health was, being in a traditional treatment center, the frustration of having a client who you cannot do all these things that are really necessary to diagnose a patient’s mental health issues so they can stay sober. Here, we are able to do that. We can diagnose, treat with medication if need be, and then attack the addiction. That is why we have such a great success rate at J. Flowers because we are able to do the whole mind body spirit.

“In a traditional center, it’s frustrating when you can’t fully diagnose and treat mental health issues to support sobriety. At J. Flowers, we can. We diagnose, medicate if needed, and tackle addiction holistically—mind, body, and spirit. That’s why our success rate is so high.”

Agree and we’re not confined to what insurance dictates. We’re not confined to a certain number of days and we’re not confined to a 30-minute session or a 45-minute session. It’s whatever we need to take with a patient. Our therapists here just go way beyond what I’ve ever seen any clinicians do in my past.

It’s nice for them because they can say, “I need an hour and a half with this person today, or I need two more hours with this person.” It’s great because the schedule changes every day. I think sometimes that is a little bit annoying to people who have been to past treatment centers and they’re used to 10:00 this happens and 11:00 this happens. Every day they get a brand new schedule that is for the next day from exactly what they need.

It’s not only seven stars for our patients, it’s seven stars for our staff. Our staff are treated and taken care of, I think, better than they are anywhere else you could work. You would agree with that? You better, just kidding. No, I do, I feel like it makes for a really great work environment, and that goes over onto the patients. The staff is being taken care of the way they are, the patients are getting that same love and care.

I was just going to add, it’s not unusual for our psychiatrist or one of the therapists to meet multiple times until they get the answers that they need. I don’t know any other place that has the psychiatrist meeting with a client day after day, every day of the week if needed, or on the weekends if needed.

I can think of a time. They come here because we provided really catered lunch so they like to come to our office. This happened to me to see the client.

One more thing just to piggyback on what we were saying about concierge services even on the weekends, we had a client whose family member was coming in over the weekend and she wanted suggestions like, “What should we do for the weekend?” Houston’s a giant city if you’re not familiar with the things to do. Somebody on our staff put together some ideas for them some restaurant suggestions and they were very happy. I mean that’s again going above and beyond just offering them some entertaining things to do when they’re not doing their clinical hours.

That brings me to the point of just mentioning when you said Houston’s a wonderful city. Not many people, we treat people from all over the world, but most of our patients come from around the United States. Sometimes we have a little resistance of going of people saying, “Texas, I’m going to Houston. No, I don’t want to go to Houston.” Houston, Texas is the fourth largest city in the United States but it is the number one most culturally diverse city in the United States.

The University of Houston is the most culturally diverse university in the United States. I think our staff shows the diversity of the city of Houston. I think that’s so important, or the diversity really of the United States and the world. I think that’s so important. What do you guys see really throughout the United States and people that have experienced long-term COVID complications and how have we reacted from the standpoint of our practice?

We’ve had many patients that have come that have had things related to what some are calling post-COVID syndrome, or my life has changed in this way since COVID. We’ve seen so many young adults with issues because they haven’t been able to hit some of those developmental markers that they should have been hitting because they were not in school. They were not socializing those kinds of things. We’ve seen a full range from increased depression and anxiety to major medical issues, seizures, and things like that that have gone on.

Just a solution.

A lot of grief. People have not been able to work through and which creates a depression and anxiety as well.

Melanie, what do you see as far as handling a staff of clinicians and an outside group of specialists and neurologists and neurosurgeons and all of the specialists that we work with? What do you think it is that creates a clear diagnosis?

For sure collaboration. We do a lot of that. We do it in some formalized ways. We have a daily staff meeting with our clinicians and ancillary stakeholders in-house. We do a provider meeting on Thursday afternoons where our outside providers join via Zoom and we go over every single person in our case. There’s tons of informal collaboration, whether it’s I’m calling a referent. Whether I’m calling Dr. Schrader, who’s our medical director. Whether I’m calling a family member for collateral information.

I think that the key is just tons of discussion, dialogue, collaboration, and sometimes even a little bit of conflict. That conflict is a good part of helping us all understand what’s going on with that patient. Somebody over here may be really on board for some personality stuff and someone else may be on board over here for bipolar and we have to like to see our way clear through talking with all of our providers and ourselves as a clinical team. We have a very sophisticated clinical team. I feel as though it’s very challenging sometimes and we do a great job.

We do. Speaking of our clinical team, we often talk about being family. We’re a growing team, but we’re a family as well. Michael, can you talk a little bit about the glue that keeps us together as a family?

Fostering A Familial Culture At J. Flowers

I think it starts with me and you and Robbin, from day one. It was us and Josh, and we were like a family before we even created J. Flowers, just from our travels and working together. We all had worked together for years. I think we just have kept that with each new employee as we have added and added, and we have grown to a really large company. I think the culture here is, because we say it all the time, we’re a family here.

We don’t want to be corporate America. It didn’t feel good to any of us. We just keep saying it. We’re a family and we support each other and love each other. When you work with clients that we work with, it’s hard daily to watch people struggle the way they struggle when they initially come through the door. Being a family really helps each of us get through the day.

Our clients and patients, they see that. They see the care and concern that we have for them and they see that we have it for each other. I think it’s a huge contributor just to the general energy that’s prevalent in our offices.

Back to my role of getting out and lecturing and being out in the public and because of Michael’s leadership and because of Michael and I working together for 22 plus years with each other, Michael is stepping into the role as chief executive officer, which we’re all excited about. The team is so excited about that. We’re really changing my role into founder and president, which allows me to get out and do things that I need to do around the country and lecture and go visit with families, whether it’s here or in London or Dubai or anywhere else, and allow Michael to step into that role and everyone see him as the leader that he is from a more visible standpoint. Thank you for doing it.

Thank you, Dr. Flowers. As you can probably all tell, this is not my thing. This camera in front of me it does not make me comfortable.

No regular show?

No, regular show. I like to be doing my thing but I am very excited, I mean, this is what you love. You love being on stage and talking about what we do and building our company. We’re excited that you’re going to get to be back out on the road doing what you love doing. I’m excited to take over that role and lead this company to the next place we’re going.

I do want everyone to know clinically, I’m still very, very involved with Dr. Somerville and will always be clinically involved with our patients and taking care of them. I know that while I’m out of the office between Shay, Michael, and Dr. Somerville, we’ve got it all handled really well. Thank you.

Closing Remarks And Where To Find Us

We thank you for joining us on the show. We’re glad you got to meet all of our leadership team, more in-depth and look forward to having more of these kinds of talks. This was really fun. For more information about J. Flowers Health, you can go to our website at JFlowersHealth.com or you can call us here at (713) 783-6655. One day I’m going to get through that without looking down but I’d like to remind everybody that’s watching, you can find us on a number of podcast platforms, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio. Please share this episode with someone on social media if you think they could benefit from it, and we look forward to seeing you soon.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

I’d like to remind everyone watching or listening to us that there are numerous platforms to find our podcasts, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio. Please share this episode on social media or with someone that you think could help. We remind you also that a clear diagnosis is key to the most effective treatment possible.

Yes, it is. See you next week. Thanks again, Robin.

Thank you.

J. Flowers Health Institute Leadership Team – Concierge Healthcare & Building A Familial Culture [Episode 69]