From Miami to Victoria Park: Dr. Ann Monis’ South Florida Story

[0:10] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of let's talk Lauderdale the show where we get hyper local and talking about business and community and things that make the 954 special, and today i am joined by Dr Ann Monis and we are going to get into a lot of

[0:30] things here in the fort Lauderdale area and talked a little bit about health. Dr. Ann, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks. All right. So let's start with, let's do a little history. I know you and I talked, but for our listeners that may not know you in terms of how you came to be in the Fort Lauderdale area, South Florida area, tell us a little bit about your journey. Sure. So I'm actually, I grew up in Miami and I didn't move to Fort Lauderdale until I was ready to lay down roots, if you will. We started family planning. And we said, Fort Lauderdale seems a bit more friendly than Miami traffic and all of the Miami things. And so we came up here and got a place in Victoria Park. And the rest is history, I guess. That's about 12, 13 years ago. All right. I spent, I think, about a year and a half in Victoria Park. So it was a very nice place back before it got all busy on Wilton Drive.

[1:33] Yes. So, Victoria Park is really undergoing so many changes. It's really cool to see. The beautiful historic homes are giving way to modern structures, and there's so much construction going on. Interesting time. It is. And I just, so I have another episode that I recorded where I just talked about the fact that it's nice to see new, but I'm starting to miss the old. I'm starting to miss the charm and everything that really made South Florida special. So mixed feelings there. Same. Okay.

[2:07] So now let's talk about, first of all, let me let everybody know, you are the founder and CEO of Transformative Healthcare Solutions. We're going to abbreviate that THS. And that is headquartered here in Fort Lauderdale.

[2:22] But you've got offices all over the place. We do. We're one of the larger talk therapy or behavioral health companies in the state of Florida. Out, and we do service the entire state. Okay. And when you say behavioral health, let's kind of talk about what that means, because I think people have a different perspective. At least I do because of what I did in college. So tell us what you do. So talk therapy. So your traditional psychotherapy model, cognitive behavioral therapy, people want to go talk to someone. We provide those services, and we do it all over the state. Okay. And you also do a lot with corporate mental health, right? So, yeah. So, we also offer corporate mental health services. So, if somebody like myself would like to bring in a company to help with wellness, lifestyle, mental health, we come in and we provide the services on-site. Nice, nice. Is that desperately needed here in South Florida? You know, you'd be surprised. It's interesting. We have a lot of.

[3:21] Are interested. But I have to tell you, South Florida is so full of self-aware and people and wellness as a general rule that it's not quite as pressing as it would be in other places.

[3:33] We do a good job down here of taking care of ourselves. Nice. Nice to hear. So businesses. Now, here's the thing. I know that over the last several years, but I guess I'm going to guess 10 to 15 years, businesses have made a point of trying to develop culture, you know it's something where we know that we have to make workplaces someplace where employees want to be and not treated so transactional as if you know we pay you do this sort of a thing um.

[4:05] Are companies doing a much better job of the entire culture or are we having to dig down and do a little bit more individual stuff I think it's a little bit of both, honestly. Here's the problem. No matter how much culture we want to do, how much we're interested in it, we still have to watch that bottom line. There is still a revenue cycle we need to watch for. And sometimes the needs of the one outweigh that of the many or vice versa. And we really need to wonder if we do this and let's say there's an ask or something in the company culture that needs to change, can we still sustain the revenue cycle, the salaries, all of the expenses we need to sustain if we make said changes. And sometimes the request doesn't necessarily align with the financials that we need to maintain in order to make that happen. That is true. That is true. Deal with that myself, trying to make sure that the bills are paid. Right. Now, Fort Lauderdale is, we're full of people who are always moving in terms of not just work and traffic and family and stuff but we've got a lot of people coming in and out so how are things, working where we have so much transient stuff happening and how are we keeping that healthy culture?

[5:23] So it really depends on the industry that you're looking at. I can speak for health care in South Florida. Because of the nature of what we do, it's not as transient as, let's say, travel, nursing or other jobs. So in behavioral health, the connection and the therapeutic rapport is so significant that in general, we don't see so much transience in our headquarters or throughout our company, but certainly in the service industry or other industries in healthcare, for example, the travel nursing, nursing, medical assistance, those will be a little bit more transient.

[5:57] Gotcha. Gotcha. So let's look at what other cities are you located here in Florida? So we're all over the state, but we do have brick and mortar in Jacksonville, St. Pete, Orlando, and then obviously in Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota as well. That being said, we still have facilities we service very much spread out. So the headquartered or the brick and mortar doesn't necessarily mean we're not servicing the entire state. Gotcha. Gotcha. I was going to ask about the difference. I know that Jacksonville is super huge up and coming in the business world. So I imagine that there's a lot there. But Sarasota, on the other hand, a lot of people are retiring there looking for a slower pace of life. So I imagine the needs are a little different. More difficult to hire. Oh, really? Yeah, because there aren't as many psychologists residing in that smaller town, you know, So much easier to hire in Fort Lauderdale, but then the needs outweigh because you do have a geriatric population. So they are looking for therapy. They are looking for care. So we kind of have to do a better job of lining up the recruiting with the needs, you know, supply and demand. Okay, gotcha.

[7:11] Let me also point out that you do some nonprofit work here. I do. I want to highlight that because that seems very interesting. Now, the work is the Florida Mental Health Coalition, is that correct? So the Florida Mental Health Coalition was founded as a result of what we were seeing in the behavioral health care model, where we had patients with really high deductibles, for example, that weren't able to meet those deductibles. And so they weren't able to get care. Or uninsured patients entirely unable to get care. Patients who had Medicaid, but the wait list was so long, unable to get care. And so we decided to do something different. So I founded that around COVID, and I said, you know, we're going to try to collect grants and do fundraising in order to allow all of these people who are not receiving mental health services to be able to get in a queue to receive them sooner or at all. Very nice. How hard was that to do during COVID? God, it's still hard. It's hard then. It's hard now.

[8:13] People don't really, you know, when you break your arm or you break your ankle, it is something that's visible. People can see it. There's something that you can work with. When someone comes in and tells you I'm depressed, you know, you're hard pressed to find someone that's going to be like, oh, let me fix that for you. Because it takes longer. We're not just putting on a cast for six to eight weeks and then doing some PT. It is not a one size fits all. There's a whole process to it. And there's also no guarantee it's going to work. Like when we're looking at a, I don't know, a broken leg, we know with near medical certainty that if we do certain things, we're going to see certain results. But if you look at mental health and you have a patient that's being treated for depression, sure, we have a DSM and we have manuals and we know that this, treatment works, but that doesn't mean that this patient will respond exactly the way you want him to in a certain amount of time. It could take two years to see relief and they don't want to pay for that. In the meantime, the third party providers. So we need to find something to bridge the gap, some kind of money, some kind of funding that's going to allow this patient to stay in treatment, get the help they need. And that, you know, when insurance says, hey, we're not going to pay for that or we've paid for, I don't know, 12 sessions and you're out of sessions.

[9:23] Yeah, that is a frustrating that's I've been talking to some other health care professionals and dealing with those types of things. it's not something that can be standardized. So that's a problem where, you know, that's like, well, like you said, 12 sessions. Oh, you should be fixed. No, that's not the case. Right. How do you not feel better, Myron? It's been 12 whole sessions.

[9:44] I don't. I just don't. Yeah. So looking back at your history, I mean, you didn't always want to be in healthcare. At least I didn't think so from looking at your bio because you got an MBA, you went to law school, how did you end up making that switch?

[10:05] Um, the truth is that when I dropped out of law school, my mother looked at me and she was like, okay, I didn't say that by the way. I wanted to say, I didn't say you dropped out. I did. I dropped out of law school guys. Um, I didn't like it. And I, I interned at a, um, criminal defense firm and I worked there and I said, by God, if this is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life, I don't know if I'll make it. Um, it just seemed like a lot of, um, it was very litigious. There was a lot of, um, stuff to schlep around. I didn't want to be in the courtroom all day, albeit I'm still intrigued by it very much. So I tried to find something that would marry my interest in the forensic world and in the judicial system but still allow me to participate in a different way. And so I picked forensic psychology. Oh, very interesting. Yes. uh did that kind of help point you in this direction where you know you not only wanted to do your practice there but also do the not-for-profit work.

[11:08] Yeah, so the nonprofit work was really because about, I would say about 17 years ago, ballpark, I had a client who had come in to see me for quite some time. She was my first patient that was really mine and all mine. And she only wanted to see me. And I treated her for quite some time. And then her daughter had a problem with the kids. The children were being removed from her care. Mom had to step in, who was my patient. And she said, Can you help our family? And I said, well, sure. So I started to provide her daughter with individual therapy. And I did this for free. I did a pro bono. I just wanted to help. And I got a call from an agency called ChildNet. And they said, listen, it's come to our attention. You're already providing these services. why don't you get credentialed with us? I said, well, I didn't know I could do that. I didn't have a license yet. I was a resident. So I said, well, I would love to. And these lovely people helped me to do that. And I got credentialed and then hired clinicians and got my own license and all the things. But I realized at that moment that had I not done this, had I not started on a pro bono basis, had I not basically donated my time, this family would have still been in the system because they didn't have a way of getting this done.

[12:29] And unbeknownst to me at the time, I just wanted to help. So that really opened the door and I said, I think I'd like to do this. And that's how we started to work toward that 501c3. Now, was that legal for you to do as a.

[12:45] Yes. So long as you're being supervised and your supervisor is signing off on it, it wasn't an issue. But this was the first time they were credentialing an unlicensed clinician to come into the system and become a go-to therapy provider. So I definitely was the first one to do that, which really prompted me to sit down for my exam a lot sooner, and I did it very quickly. But at the time, I was dragging my feet a little, truth be told, on the exam. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay. Dragging your feet is not something that I imagine because your bio says that you got your MBA at the age of 19. So there's an error. My sister pointed it out the other day. She said, you know, you didn't get your degree conferred at that time. You finished the coursework. But because you were in a dual JD MBA program, they didn't confer your diploma till a little bit later. And I said, okay, thanks for caring. So that is the truth. That is really what happened. So I think it was a couple of years after that that they conferred.

[13:48] I am not one to drag my feet at all. I think I was so nervous that I would have to sit down for this terrible exam more than once that I just kind of procrastinated as long as possible. And then I only passed by five points. But I still passed. You still passed, but you were doing dual work. I was. It was a tough time. I was waiting tables, bartending, seeing patients for cash pay, working in a clinic, you know. Those were the times, right, in your 20s where you just needed to hustle and get it done. I remember those. I did that. A ton of jobs on the side, worked in the cafeteria.

[14:25] I typed papers for other students who couldn't type their own, delivered pizzas. Yeah, did whatever you could to do that. That's right. So that's what I did. And don't forget, the exam was like $1,000. I mean, you know, I had to save up for that. So...

[14:40] Um, and leave it to your sister to, you know, was that out of jealousy that she said that she goes, you're a public figure. We're putting this on a website. We can't have these mistakes. They're going to think you did it on purpose. We're not doing that. So she fixed it. Okay, great. All right.

[14:57] Um, let's turn a little bit more local because I know we talked in the beginning that you, uh, in your family planning, as you said, it decided to move to the Lauderdale area. Um how did you pick Victoria park so my now ex-husband meanwhile I m still in fort Lauderdale side um, he was um in um pompano living on the water in pompano and i was all the way in downtown Miami living across from the American airlines arena, and so i certainly wasn't leaving for pompano it seemed really far he didn't want to live in south Miami and we knew he had to come up with something and we drove through Victoria Park and the oak trees were so pretty and there's Annie Beck Park on the right and oh.

[15:42] Yeah so we looked for signs outside that said for rent and back in the day those were still there and that's how we chose interesting I would have thought halfway would have been like Hollywood, yeah but I didn't want to live in Hollywood no I think Las Olas is so charming and I like the restaurants and the shops and you know we have more buzz than Hollywood. Not as much as Miami, perhaps, which is a good thing now as I age. But back then I wasn't ready to hang it up just yet. Right, right. Favorite place to hang out in Victoria Park or Las Olas?

[16:17] So we're partial to, you know, we're very happy Ocean Prime opened. I'm really partial to the Sunset View upstairs. Okay. And then Eddie V's if we're staying on Los Olas. But my favorite growing up was always Timpano's. Really? Yep. That was a little fantastic. Yeah, little fantastic place there very nice very nice um do you have people come down and visit a lot from out of town, So I'm one of those rare cases that because I grew up down here and my friends are already here. And they're already here. Sure. We occasionally, you know, people will come in from the Midwest or from somewhere else. Hey, I'm coming down. But I've been here since the fourth grade. So my friends live one aisle over to the right or the left. And it's really nice. All right. They still bug you about going down to Miami, saying that's where the real. Let's go to Miami. My birthday was, I turned 45 recently and we got rooms at the Faena. end, we pretended we were 25 again. It was fabulous. Very nice. Very nice.

[17:16] So for people that want to reach out to you, so I want to list your websites here. So your company site, ths.health. Yep. And then you also have another website, drann.com. That's me. So when you did the second one, which one came first? Let me ask that. So THS is always, it was the company I found it. It was previously known as Mental Health Center of Florida. We rebranded, renamed because we started doing more than just mental health. And so we grew and we needed to change that. And then recently, as I've started to think about next steps, what am I going to do? Matriculating through my career, I realized that I am going to have to create another brand because there's only so much attachment you can have to your first brand. So Dr. Ann is really going to be the next phase of life. Interesting. So if you go to that page, it's, Boom, right up there, one conversation, multiple disciplines.

[18:15] Got your portfolio, your ideas, media. So you're going to start to do some media stuff? So there's stuff in there. I don't know if they're still loading it, but there's a bunch of stuff in there that I've already done. It's been an interesting several years, definitely getting out there and mingling with South Florida, giving talks and being invited as guest speakers, sitting on panels. It's been a fun ride. So when you get to go do those things, especially the guest speaking and stuff, what are they asking you to talk about and what's really resonating with people? So it really depends. I've done quite a bit of women's topics as it relates to women's health, menopause, perimenopause, those types of topics. Something that I enjoy doing the most and I do get quite a bit of is how did you get here? Being a woman, being a minority, you know, moving here from another country. How did you do that? And what are you doing? What advice do you have? Which is super fun. I enjoy that. And then recently I did one on a manopause. A lot of men's health stuff is coming up now, which is fun as well. And I like the diversification. And then in terms of my original company, THS, you know, scaling in health care, the difference of running a business versus just the health care model, because at the end of today, we do need to have that positive cash flow. So I really enjoy those as well. Yeah.

[19:42] Okay. I've just, I've got two sidebars here. I'm only going to ask you one now, and then we'll talk about another one here in a little bit. The coming over as a minority, starting your business and stuff. When I started my business, of course, everybody told me, you know, you got to go out and get this funding, get this funding, apply for this. And I'm like, no, I want to do it on my own. I just, I don't want people to think I got to, you know, handout or something like that, being a female minority, how has that been? It's very similar. I bootstrapped it myself, took a loan, a personal loan, not any kind of.

[20:20] SBA or anything. It was a private loan from a bank with a decent size interest rate. And I decided I would bootstrap it. And when everyone said, oh, you're a woman in business, you can apply for all of these things. And I said, no, I'm not going to do that because that's not how I want to be perceived. And that's not how I'm coming in. I'm coming in fair and square. And it worked I don't know how it would work today This is going back 20 years I think we had different opportunities back then And the world has changed so much Yeah, And I will say I mean, congrats to you Because you have done it You've got the multiple angles there You've got the multiple businesses You've got, what, over 100 employees now? So, great job.

[21:05] Um, let's see, when we first talked, there was a, you had talked about possibly writing books. Yeah. Is that started? Yeah, I finished two. I'm writing the third and they're going to be released as a trilogy. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Oh, all at once? Uh, very close, not at once, but pretty close together. Okay. Uh, any idea when that might happen? Because we'll have to talk when that happens. Today at two, we're having our final meeting to review the edits. Or my sister's going like this to me in the background. She's like, tomorrow, you're having your days wrong. So it is tomorrow. But I'm really excited because those were the final edits and my editor and my publisher are ready to start moving and that'll be a book one.

[21:55] And it is a month delayed from what I'd hoped, simply because some more edits came up and I felt that the quality could have been a little better. Okay. All right. So since your sister is bugging us, we'll go ahead and wrap up here. I do want to thank you for your time and coming on the show today. Folks, Dr. Anne Monis, THS.health and DrAnn.com. And thank you very much and look forward to when those books come out. Keep you posted. Thanks for having me. All right. That's going to do it, folks, for this episode. And be sure to check out the websites for our guests and be checking out the, website and your favorite pod catcher for when episodes come out. And let's keep talking Lauderdale.