Heart-Centered Counseling has wide range of care

Carl Nassar credits the success of Heart-Centered Counseling in Fort Collins to a number of things, but mostly its plan to create a therapeutic environment that could be as many things as possible to as many people as possible.

The result of his wish is the bringing together of 11 therapists who cover a wide range of specialties, are available to fit a variety of schedules and accept a broad selection of insurance.

“People value having one place to go to have their mental health needs met,” said Nassar, Heart-Centered Counseling’s director. “I want our success rate to be 100 percent in providing a high level of reliable care.”

The expertise at Heart-Centered Counseling includes therapists with experience working with children, teens, adults, couples and families.  In addition to being able to offer a variety of modalities, having a lot of therapists available allows the center to be able to see clients quickly.  The time it takes to meet with someone for the initial session ranges from one day to one week.

About 220 clients are seen weekly.

Another success strategy that has boosted Heart-Centered Counseling has been that it partnered with family practice and internal medicine at University of Colorado Health.

“We work closely with them to meet the mental-health needs of their clients,” Nassar said. “With the Affordable Care Act, they are being asked to provide mental-health assistance, and it was hard for doctors there to be able to refer clients.”

To round out its services, University of Colorado Health has a care compact with Heart-Centered Counseling. Unlike a contract, it is what Nassar called “a memorandum of understanding, recognizing us as the mental-health facility they like to refer their clients to.”

Nassar started Heart-Centered Counseling as his private practice and maintained the name as he added more therapists to the organization. Revenue was $150,000 in 2012 but grew to $200,000 in 2013 and $400,000 in 2014.

The numbers put Heart-Centered Counseling at a 100 percent one-year revenue growth and 166.667 percent for two years.

“When I was in private practice, the largest way to draw clients was through word-of-mouth and having an Internet presence,” Nassar said. “As we have grown, that’s shifted into becoming more of a community member and building relationships and allegiance that way, which is a lot more than being found on a Google search engine.”

Other partnerships Heart-Centered Counseling has in the community include doctor’s offices and the school district.

“The mental health landscape is changing quickly,” Nassar said.  “The SIM grant, for example, is bringing a lot of money to integrate mental health together with physical health.”

The State Innovation Models (SIM) Initiative provides financial and technical support to states for the development of state-led multi-payer health-care payment and service delivery models.

“One of my goals,” Nassar said, “is to work more closely with doctors and integrate our care with theirs.”

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