Affordable Ketamine Treatments: Interview With Dr. Bryan Henry of PsychMD

Earlier this year, we covered the news of a string of ketamine clinic closures across the psychedelic medicine space. Two major providers of ketamine therapy announced closings in the same week, leaving the industry with questions and patients suddenly without treatment options.

On the patient front, we heard from military veterans scrambling to find alternatives, desperate to continue ketamine treatments that were literally saving their lives. From a commercial perspective, the existing model of ketamine clinics had taken a serious beating and the industry was wondering how the treatment sector would recover.

Which is why the recent launch of PsychMD and its affordable telehealth model could help patient access and act as a welcome jumpstart to the space.

Leading From Experience: Accessible Treatment Options

We sat down with PsychMD President and Founder Bryan Henry to discuss the company’s ambitious roll-out. Dr. Henry has personal experience as a healthcare provider, military veteran, and mental health patient who personally experienced the benefits of ketamine therapy. We discussed how this kind of first-hand knowledge can help shape PsychMD’s goals and operational ethos.

Let’s start with a little bit of background. You’ve worked with these therapies yourself. What’s your story and how did it lead you here?

Bryan Henry: After high school, I joined the military, the Marine Corps. I did my time in the service in the early 2000s, but knew I was going to go into medicine as many of my siblings did. I was going to be a trauma doctor in an intensive care unit, but I started suffering from a condition and couldn’t find anybody to treat me. So I took matters into my own hands and got my PhD in endocrinology and reproductive physiology, and eventually opened our first clinic.

In 2019, I really started going downhill. I suffer from PTSD, but couldn’t really put my finger on what was causing the issues. It was getting so bad that I could barely get out of bed. It was really affecting our patient outcomes, our family life, my children’s life etc.

Well, my sister happens to be an MD at the VA (Veterans Affairs) and she saw how ketamine was really improving the lives of veterans with PTSD. I thought I was just gonna have to retire and go on disability — until I started ketamine through the recommendation of my sister. I’ve been a ketamine patient since 2019 and it’s really helped. I’ve seen the results.

So it’s very personal for me. Given the fact that I am myself a patient.

So there’s personal experience with ketamine. But also some significant experience in telehealth?

Yes, we’re coming into the field as the largest telemedicine provider for men and women in the wellness area (PeterMD and PetraMD). So that gives us a lot of experience. And we have been fortunate enough to aggregate some of the best executives in the nation into our companies. So we have a great base and a great team.

It really gives us a solid foundation to push off into the ketamine space and treat patients nationally.

So there’s telemedicine infrastructure and experience and now you’re using that as a base and expanding into ketamine telehealth?

Exactly. PsychMD is our new venture about to roll out. We’ll be able to treat patients coast to coast, the only ketamine telehealth company able to do that right now. We have a provider network that meets the Ryan Haight Act being reimplemented in November, so that automatically puts makes us one of the few clinics that can still operate legally.

This gives us such a broad provider base that we’re able to treat patients nationally (except for about four states). And we hope to be in 50 states soon.

So PychMD offers broad, national coverage. What else differentiates you?

Great question. Along with our national coverage, affordability has to be number one. If you look at our prices compared to our competitors, we’re over 75% cheaper. We believe people should be able to afford the treatments they need.

Second has to be our platform. We’ve introduced a revolutionary platform built on our previous work, and that makes the journey so much easier. At the end of the day, the patient needs less obstacles for better treatment. So we take a lot of the obstacles out of the way. Making patient access easier.

And, perhaps most important in the long-run, we’re introducing artificial intelligence. No clinic has done this yet. We’ve done it with about 60 of our patients thus far and the outcomes are phenomenal compared to traditional treatment.

We’ve been hearing all these stories of clinic closures, of veterans and patients left without treatments. And then there are expensive ketamine clinics or Oregon centres charging thousands for psilocybin. Access is a real issue that you’re trying to solve?

Yes. Absolutely. First, we’re happy to provide 45% off therapy for Ketamine Wellness Center patients that have left without treatment. And then we are going to focus on combat veterans and get them the treatments they need.

We want patients to know that we’re not going anywhere. We’re here to help with prices that are affordable. It’s crazy what some of these companies are charging. So we cut that down by 75% and hopefully we can make a difference by doing so.

To learn more about PsychMD, check out their website here and see below for the full interview with Bryan Henry.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Microdose Psychedelic Insights (@microdosehq)

The post Affordable Ketamine Treatments: Interview With Dr. Bryan Henry of PsychMD appeared first on Microdose.

Read More