Recently, I was invited to attend a meeting with the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions (NAHPC) focused on mental health and substance use care. The meeting included stakeholders from around Maryland that are participating in a nationally funded initiative to improve health care and close the gaps in care that employers are seeing in their workforce. My invitation was directly related to the work URAC has been doing on Integrated Behavioral Health and our new work on Mental Health Parity.

We are off to a huge start this year – new programs, a new space and new clients to serve! Many of you heard about the exciting changes we have been working on as 2019 ended and the launch of our newest programs to kick off January.

I want you all to know how thankful I am for the work that you do and the progress we are making as a group. I’ve said it many times, but I believe URAC can change health care for the better across the country and the world.

We finally have some fall weather in DC. The leaves are starting to change, the nights are getting cooler and I’m starting to wonder if I remember how to scrape frost off my windshield. By the time this comes out, the World Series will be settled and either my new city – DC – or my old city – Houston – will be celebrating (I’ll buy a shirt to brag either way). Luckily there is no NFL in DC to distract us.

One of my favorite things about working in DC is the morning drive in from Alexandria. That may sound strange to some of you, but I spent about 10 years driving in Houston with very little to see except more traffic. One of the things I see as I drive in is the scaffolding on the Jefferson Memorial and I noticed that some of the dome on the memorial looks cleaner than the rest. I saw an interesting story on the local news a few nights ago about the process that they are using to clean the dome.

August 6^th marks six months since I joined URAC. To some of you that may seem like I just showed up a week ago and others may believe I have been here ten years, but the calendar does not lie. There have been many changes since I joined the team and we are not done yet.

This will be my first summer in DC. I can’t say that I am looking forward to the heat, humidity, or tourists, but I spent almost a decade in Houston, so it can’t be MUCH worse. June will also mark the high school graduation of my youngest, Jonathan. After that graduation, my wife and two of our boys will move up from Charlotte and I will get to have us all together again for the summer. My family has always been incredibly important to me and I’m told that my face lights up when I talk about them. It has been hard to be away from my wife and sons for these four months, but I really believe the work we are doing at URAC is worth it.