The Recovery Executive Podcast

Hosted by Nick Jaworski

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Episodes

106

Latest episode

Oct 2025

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About the show

The business of recovery is changing fast. Many executives are getting left behind. The Recovery Executive Podcast talks to experts in the field on marketing, operations, M&As, billing, and growth to help you build your organization, serve more of those who need help, and stay on top.

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October 8, 20251 hr 3 min

EP 109: Leading One of the Most Successful Non-profits in the Country with Jay Crosson

Cumberland Heights is one of the most consistently profitable non-profit treatment programs in the country. If you look at the 990s of many well-known non-profit treatment programs, they have consistent annual fiscal deficits when donor contributions are removed from the P&L. They have also continued to successfully expand throughout the state, adding on service lines and locations. In this episode, I speak with CEO Jay Crosson to learn just what it is about Cumberland Heights' strategy that has made is so consistently successful.

October 8, 20251 hr 6 min

EP 108: Thinking Through Innovation in SUD with Brad Sorte

How do treatment programs innovate and what innovations are on the horizon, especially as we move into more consistent use of AI across departments? In this episode, I speak with Brad Sorte, previous CEO of Caron and current Co-founder of Sober Companion AI to address these topics.

April 16, 20251 hr 2 min

EP 107: Opportunities in Teen Treatment Models with Chris Perkins

Teen treatment has been a hot topic for expansion and investment recently in behavioral health. "Lots of demand with not enough providers" is the current mantra. But is this accurate? What makes a good teen health provider? Should adult programs add on teen options? If the prevailing mantra is true, why are we seeing so many closures of teen facilities across the country? All these questions and more will be answered with my guest, Chris Perkins, CEO of Velocity Health Group and previous CEO of Calo (now part of Embark), one of the most successful teen treatment programs in the country.

July 4, 202450 min

EP 106: Maximizing OON Reimbursement on Self-funded Plans with Ali Beheshti

Many OON providers don't realize that a number of employer-funded insurance contracts include clauses that provide for higher reimbursements in exchange for guarantees not to balance bill patients, often resulting in millions of dollars of unreimbursed care. This episode is a deep dive into the complex world of third-party administrators (TPAs), downline administrators, self-funded vs. provider-funded insurance plans, and negotiating no balance billing clauses for OON contracts with Ali Beheshti, CEO of Zealie.

April 24, 202450 min

EP 105: How to Cultivate Private Pay Referrals with Mark OConnor.mp3

High-end private pay programs charge as much as $100,000 a month for patients entering these exclusive facilities. Cultivating referral relationships for patients in the income bracket that can afford such programs require a specialized approach. Mark O'Connor has worked in outreach for both Caron and The Lighthouse, two programs renowned for the quality of care they provide, that comes at significant cost for their higher end programming. Mark walks us through his relationships and approach that have helped him regularly place patients into such programming.

March 6, 20241 hr 7 min

EP 104: Common Sense Business Development with Shelley Plemons

Stagnant community outreach and business development strategies are still the norm in much of the field of behavioral health, which is why so many providers struggle to build consistently high-performing teams. Often, lack of results are ascribed to the outreach reps themselves, but the reality is that there is significant opportunity for providers to step up their hiring, training, and support processes for their teams. Shelley Plemons, most recently the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Growth for Discovery Behavioral and now a Senior Consultant for Circle Social, discusses the strategies and tactics that define successful outreach teams. We discuss how much of it is really common sense, but this is certainly a topic where the adage "common sense is often not common practice" applies.

October 16, 202355 min

EP 102: MAT, Data, and Value-based Care with Cooper Zelnick

Groups Recover Together has developed a very specific care model that doesn't fit into standard fee-for-service arrangements. This required them to think outside the box when negotiating with payers, resulting in the majority of their contracts being value-based care arrangements. Groups is committed to delivering positive outcomes for its patients and goes at risk with the payers to guarantee those results. They've developed robust outcomes tracking, something notoriously hard to do in the MAT space, enabling them to see what's working, what's not, and where taking risk is appropriate. Cooper Zelnick, CRO of Groups, walks us through their care model, the data they collect, and how both those things create value for patients and payers.

September 7, 202351 min

EP 101: Intentionality In Developing Programs And Scaling With Jaime Vinck

Intentionality is different from desire. Many programs want to grow, they strive to grow, but there is not always intentionality as to how they go about that, especially when it comes to community need and program design. In this episode, I speak with Jaime Vinck, CEO of Recovery Ways and former CEO of Sierra Tuscon, regarding building a program with intentionality. How should programs look at community need, payer relationships, and program development BEFORE they open up a new program? Jamie shares her extensive experience as well as Recovery Ways' current common sense strategy to growth and scale.

August 10, 20231 hr 4 min

EP 100: Expert Call Center Admissions with Michele Santagata

Successful call center operations are integral to the success of any provider. Your marketing and outreach teams can be phenomenal, but if your admissions staff on the phones don't do their job well, patients will go elsewhere. Call centers are so much more than merely staff training. The staff have to be good, but you also need to set them up for success with appropriate technology, tracking, software, scheduling, and structure. In this episode, Michele Santagata, CEO of Santagata Consulting, shares her expertise running call centers big and small for behavioral health.

August 3, 202351 min

EP 99: Bootstrapping to Success with Tyler Tisdale

How does a first-time entrepreneur bootstrap a treatment program starting with outpatient and then gradually building a full continuum of care? In Arizona, many treatment programs were started, and almost as many failed within short order, Tyler Tisdale, CEO of Pinnacle Peak Recovery, shares his story of success and what it took to get there, how he succeeded where so many others did not. He takes us through the pivots, systems, processes, and strategies that have made Pinnacle Peak one of the leading providers in the Greater Phoenix area.