Colorado residents looking for mental health treatments focused on anxiety, depression and/or obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have a new option — Rogers Behavioral Health.
The national not-for-profit mental health treatment provider launched its first Colorado location in Arapahoe County, opening a clinic located at 10333 East Dry Creek Road.
“We are just so excited to bring Rogers to Denver and to meet the growing need for specialized, evidence-based treatment,” said Clinical Director Julia Carbonella during the clinic’s open house on Nov. 3.
According to the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration, an estimated three in 10 Coloradans, or 1.5 million people, are in need of mental health or substance use disorder care.
The new Rogers clinic offers what’s called “partial hospitalization,” meaning clients spend about six hours a day, five days a week at the clinic working on their treatment program, said Blair Famarin, an outreach manager at Rogers Behavioral Health.
“It’s a full day, almost like a workday or a school day,” Famarin said.
Within the partial hospitalization model, the clinic offers four programs — a depression recovery program for adults or for adolescents, and an OCD and anxiety program for adults or for children and adolescents.
The clinic provides different types of therapies, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, which Mayo Clinic defines as a type of psychotherapy to help clients become aware of negative thinking so they can view challenging situations more clearly and respond effectively.
To address OCD and anxiety conditions, the clinic offers exposure and response prevention, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. It involves confronting things that trigger a client’s obsessions and making the choice to not perform a compulsive behavior, according to the International OCD Foundation.
In addition to the therapy treatments, the clinic has an advanced practice nurse practitioner, Ghea Mae Degillo, whom clients visit at least twice a week.
“Primarily, I’m in charge of medication management and treatment planning,” Degillo said. “I like that Rogers is able to incorporate both the psychotherapy and psychopharmacology, so that we’re (where) medication and therapy kind of meet.”
Degillo said the clinic offers evidence-based treatment that is individualized to client needs.
Clients also do a weekly assessment score in order to keep track of progress and assess if changes are needed, she said.
Colorado marks Rogers Behavioral Health’s 10th state
Rogers Behavioral Health was founded in 1907 in Wisconsin, according to its website, and it now has locations in 10 states.
The decision to open a location in Colorado was due to a generous donation made by a local family who wished to remain anonymous, said Bradley Riemann, president of philanthropy, research and clinical care for Rogers Behavioral Health.
“It’s incredible when families have the confidence in us, the trust in us to really allow us to come into a community like this,” Riemann said.
While the Colorado clinic is currently focused on offering the partial hospitalization level of care, it plans to offer an “intensive outpatient care” model which consists of clients visiting about three hours a day, five days a week, Famarin said.
Carbonella described the clinic as offering a mid-level range of care that can help serve people who may not need a residential or inpatient level of care, but who need more specialized treatment than weekly outpatient individual therapy.
“Most of our primary therapists maintain a minimal caseload of four, so there’s lots of eyes and we have a multidisciplinary team that is able to pay a lot of individualized attention to every patient,” Carbonella said.
The clinic can accommodate up to 32 clients at a time, Famarin said. The clinic currently has five clients since its opening in late October.
Anna Korbel is a family therapist at the clinic who works on the child and adolescent unit, often meeting one-on-one with clients, with families and occasionally running group sessions.
She said the partial hospitalization programs can last up to eight weeks, though the time may vary depending on the child.
“Most of our kids will step out of school to do this program,” Korbel said, since it occurs from the morning to afternoon.
Famarin said the clinic has a school education liaison who calls the student’s school and gets work sent over. The child has one hour every day to complete the work, which is then sent back to the school for grading.
“When they’re returning back to school, we have a back-to-school meeting with the school staff, and then we talk to them about how we can get the kid back to school to where they’re not overwhelmed with so much work,” Famarin said.
For working adults, Famarin said they typically take a leave of absence from work through the Family and Medical Leave Act.
“And then we help them decide what they’re going to tell people when they go back,” Famarin said, explaining it’s up to the clients how much they want to share with others.
Getting treatment
To get a free, confidential screening, residents can call (888) 927-2203. The phone screening will take up to an hour, Famarin said.
“And once they do that, it gets sent to our doctor who determines what level of care is best, which program is best,” Famarin said. “Then, we call them back (and) let them know when they can start.”
Therapy is for everyone, Korbel said, whether or not a person has a mental health diagnosis. She noted there have been some patients at Rogers who had OCD and didn’t even realize it.
“Our outcomes show that patients, their symptoms really do decrease and we really increase their quality of life,” Carbonella said. “That’s our ultimate goal to bring to the Denver community and to really provide this life-changing treatment close to home.”
Those interested in learning more about Rogers Behavioral Health can visit rogersbh.org/locations/denver-co.
