Bringing access to healthcare to underserved populations has always been a passion of mine. As a psychiatrist for over 30 years, I started my career making a difference in people’s lives one person at a time. But with the magnitude of the problem that is out in the community, Access Ohio was created with the objective of putting together excellent teams to scale up to provide mental health and substance abuse services to a large number of individuals.

Over the past 15 years, we are proud to have treated and cared for over 100,000 people. Although there is huge mental health need in every population, we decided to focus on the most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged of these populations—those with Medicaid. In 2006, we started with one outpatient clinic, but have now grown to 15 locations spanning outpatient centers, hospitals, residential treatment facilities, and more. Through our footprint, we are able to provide the full continuum of services for people of all ages (from children to geriatric) through services that range from IOP partial hospitalization programs, inpatient hospitalization, residential treatment facilities, and intensive outpatient centers.

When we realized that many of those with mental illness have chronic comorbid medical conditions and even when referred did not seek or obtain these services, we decided to provide integrative primary care to them in order to provide more comprehensive treatment.

This could not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of all the Access Ohio staff, who have a genuine passion for helping those that need it most, and who day-to-day are making a positive difference in the lives of so many in our communities.

Over the next few years, we hope to scale our operations further and expand services to more geographic areas so that we can serve even more people affected by mental illness. We look forward to the next many years of serving our communities and celebrating excellence in behavioral health.