Resilience Development in Action: First Responder Mental Health

E. 240 Alaska, Crisis, And The Thin Line Part 1

• Steve Bisson, Morgan Yaskus • Season 13 • Episode 240

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The toughest calls rarely end when the sirens go quiet. We sat down with Alaska-based counselor Morgan Yaskus to explore how real support for police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics takes shape in small communities where everyone knows your truck, your shift, and your business. Morgan spent three years on a nonprofit-led mobile crisis team working alongside first responders through MOUs, navigating scenes that were neither strictly medical nor criminal. That proximity reshaped how debriefs happen, how trust is earned, and why cultural competence matters more than any script.

We get honest about the barriers that keep first responders from care: parking outside a therapy office that sits between the firehouse and PD, the risk of being recognized by neighbors, and the thin bench of clinicians who truly “get it.” Morgan breaks down what helpful looks like—clear boundaries, discreet logistics, and a therapist who understands dark humor without pathologizing it. We challenge voyeuristic “worst call” questions and focus instead on regulation, meaning-making, and peer-informed support that fits the tempo of the job.

Beyond the room, access and policy loom large. Telehealth opened doors, but interstate licensure compacts and reimbursement rates remain sticking points in places with higher costs of living. We talk ethical realities in rural practice, the trade-offs when conflicts of interest are unavoidable, and the duty to serve when the alternative is no care at all. If you’re a responder, a clinician, or a leader trying to build a healthier department, you’ll leave with practical steps for debriefs, privacy, and finding culturally competent help.

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with your team, and join us for Part 2!

To reach Morgan, go to www.bewildandrooted.com

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson. This is the podcast dedicated to first responder mental health, helping police, fire, EMS, dispatchers, and paramedics create better growth environments for themselves and their teams. Let's get started.ai.

SPEAKER_01:

You heard me talk about it. I'm gonna keep on talking about it because I love it. I've had about a year and a half, 18 months practice with it, and I still enjoy it. And it saves me time and it saves me energy. Free.ai takes your note, makes a trans what you're talking about a client, just press record. And it does either transcript, it does a subjective, and an objective with a letter if needed for your client and for whoever might need it. So for$99 a month, it saves me so much time that it's worthwhile. And if you do it for a whole year, guess what? You get 10% off. More importantly, this is what you got because you are my audience that listens to Resilience Development in Action. If you do listen to this and you want to use free.ai, put in the code Steve50 in the promo code area. Steve 50. And you will get$50 off in addition to everything we just talked about. Get free from writing your notes. Get free from even writing your transcripts. Use that to your advantage. Free.ai, a great service. Go to getfree.ai and you will get one of the best services that will save you time and money. And I highly encourage you to do so. Well, hi everyone, and welcome to episode 240. This is the third episode of the year. In episode 239, we met with Jeff Dill, who works in Nevada with the Fire Firefighters, particularly, but it was a great interview. I hope you go back and listen to this. But I'm very excited to finally meet someone that I connected with online like seven months ago when this comes out in January. And she showed up suddenly in my my sheets. I do a release for the podcast regularly. I'm like, who's this? And she's like, Oh, remember me from Facebook? Like, oh yeah, I do. And I was actually fascinated because I at the time, I think I had just asked my first person from Alaska who talked about her experience in Antarctica. And now I hear she sold out and lives in Washington, so whatever. But you know, I'm very happy to meet with Morgan Yaskis, and I pronounced that right, to resilience development in action. So welcome.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you. You did pronounce it right. Yeah. And yes, I am still here in Alaska, born and raised.

SPEAKER_01:

You're born and raised in Alaska. What part of Alaska?

SPEAKER_03:

Well still, I'm about an hour outside of Anchorage, which is where you would typically fly into. Or people who are less familiar with Alaska know Anchorage still.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, uh I can't say I'm super familiar with Alaska. I mean, I I would have been very impressed if you told me you were from the Aleutian Islands, but I guess that's not where you're from.

SPEAKER_03:

It is not. No.

SPEAKER_01:

You can see or I hear you can see Russia from there. But anyway, I got to know you a little bit pre-interview. I loved our conversation online too, and very happy to have you here. But the audience might not know who you are. So how about you do a quick introduction about yourself?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. My name's Morgan. I'm a licensed professional counselor here in Alaska. I spent the last three years on our mobile crisis team, which was the first one we've ever had in the borough that I live in. So that was really exciting. And it was ran in kind of an interesting way, actually. So it was under the umbrella of a nonprofit. Um so I wasn't actually connected to EMS or fire law enforcement. And that is how most of the other programs, like in our Anchorage area, are ran. And so we had MOUs with all of those entities and we worked alongside them. And so it was a really great experience, but it didn't necessarily come without its challenges. And I think it was great practice in terms of building relationships within like the first responder realms because they they don't just trust you right off the bat and they shouldn't. And so I think it just created a lot of really great opportunity uh to practice that relationship building before I moved to private practice, which is where I am now. And I see children and families about that's probably 60% of my case load and the other 40% being first responders. So I don't see any adults in between there outside of family work or first responders.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you know, I that's why a lot of people like I know I'm specialized working as a mental health first responder person, but I it's about 60 to 70% of my case load, depending on the time of year and so forth, because with all due respect to my women and men who work in the first responder world, I need a change of pace. I can't only do that. So with all due respect to them, that's why I I respect the fact that you have a balance also.

SPEAKER_03:

Fun balance. I get to play, I do some play therapy for a couple sessions, and I get to see the first responders and then back and forth, and it keeps me on my toes. I'll say that much.

SPEAKER_01:

So they're very good at keeping us on our toes. I I think anyway. But you know, that there's a few questions I want to ask. Well, one of them I was gonna ask you, you know, we we connected, but it's not like you connected with me and said, gee, do you have a podcast? You kind of wanted to be on the podcast. So I don't know what was your motivation to come on to the podcast because I everyone has different motivations for these things.

SPEAKER_03:

And aside from you just like really looking like a podcast guy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, I do look like a podcast. And the voice, right?

SPEAKER_03:

I think a really important piece of my work and what I do is that I'm in school for my doctorate right now. I mean, it's not in clinical work, it's in human services with the focus on community prevention, intervention, and advocacy. So that is all it's a mouthful, but it is very near and dear to my heart. And I think a big piece of that is just speaking out on a lot of these challenges, the good, the bad, the ugly, and bringing awareness to it all. And so I think when I saw your post, I was like, wow, this is a really great opportunity to do that actually, to just speak from experience, right? And not speaking down educationally, but just speaking about what challenges I've experienced, kind of being in that that therapist role and also that first responder role, and also combining the two and just the the unique challenges that we see here in Alaska, because as many people know, we're a little isolated over here.

SPEAKER_01:

So well, I blame Canada for that one. And that's where I'm from. So all joking aside, I think that that's the great thing because that's where I started off with the community justice stuff years ago in the nonprofit. Shout out to advocates for the years I spent there. They really formed me. But it really was, you know, the challenges of you know presenting the community service to for for you know for we had a lot of uh people from other countries. And I know that's controversial right now, but I don't frankly care. But we had to do some education, and the police don't want to arrest you necessarily, they want to make sure that you don't get the living piss kicked out of you. And they're not looking to necessarily always put people in jail if they need support and they need help for treatment. I mean, we we worked really hard. You know, we started that in uh 2006 and we really graduated. And I that's one of my passions, so I'm very happy you're gonna talk about that. The other thing I wanted to ask you, because this is wasn't in the questions, but here's your first curveball. Just welcome to my show.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm ready for it.

SPEAKER_01:

How do you wake up one day? And this is what I've been asked this question, so I always like it because it's a good question. What made you decide one day, like, gee, Willakers? I'm gonna become I'm gonna work in a community, I'm gonna work the crisis team, and I can't wait to work with first responders. Who in the blue hell wakes up and says, I want to do that?

SPEAKER_03:

You know, it's something we tell our clients all the time, right? It's like you recreate your childhood environments. And then I genuinely think that actually is my answer. Like, you know, I used to say, uh, because I work in residential care for a little while too. And I used to say, like, I just thrive in chaos. I just thrive in chaos. And then I'm pretty sure my therapist felt me down at one point and has like, was like, have you thought about why? You know, and I'm like, no, of course I haven't. I don't want to go there. Right. Yeah. I'm like, I think we're at time for today. I'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the therapist being interviewed by a therapist sometimes. We need we have control issues with that. But anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, right, right. But I do think that was a piece of it where I was like, oh, the chaos felt kind of normal, actually. But I also am a big believer that when when you have I gotta find the right words for this, but when you have this thing that you're that you're naturally good at, and it's this gift that you have that it should be shared. And I think as I started working in the residential space at first, I did notice that. And that's not like a toot your own horn moment, but it was just I felt okay in those situations. My my nervous system was able to stay regulated and I was able to just think really, I think what I enjoyed most was was being able to think outside of the box. And so then when the talk of creating this mobile crisis team was out, was happening, and I was able to join that team. I got to do that for the next three years. I got to think outside of the box, and that's what I really enjoyed. So being okay in the chaos was a piece of it, but also just the really I I call it autonomy, but it's not like I really had a choice of thinking outside of outside of the box and really redefining what it means to meet people where they're at. Because I think truthfully, that phrase gets used all of the time, and it's just not always true in my experience. We're not often meeting these people where they're at.

SPEAKER_01:

No, because we want the resolution more than we want to meet them where they're at, and it's learning to go into resolution while meeting them where they're at. And that's a tricky combo, if you ask me. Um the other thing I want to note is I know we're we're there's a little difference in age here, but I started residential and then I worked on a crisis team for about 15 years among other jobs during that time. And uh now I'm in private practice. So I feel like there's a lot of parallels in our careers, and I I find that very particularly interesting. But yeah, I think that, you know, when you talk about helping the community, one of the things I'm sure you saw when you worked on a mobile crisis team is that not only is the community needing help, but sometimes those guys would or gals, I'm not trying to be gender discriminatory here, but they would open up to you because of like uh the stuff they deal with. I don't know if that was your experience, but certainly happened with me.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times it was the first time in a long time, maybe ever, that there was somebody else there that might get it. Somebody that they're not spending 24 hours a day with, right? But yeah, I think that was absolutely a part of it. And it it gave them, you know, our our team exists and gave them a space to to process some of these these things, whether they realize that's what was happening or not. But really, like our our debrief system is maybe not the greatest out here either. I think we're really trying. I think they're really trying. But uh Alaska's really known for being behind the game in a lot of ways. Like anything that happens, we'll get there five to ten years later. And I think this is one of those things that we're getting to, but we're not there yet. And so we were able to bri bridge that gap a little bit for them too, of of being there for debriefs or leading the debriefs, or just staffing different different questions where and and I'll get into this a little bit later, but where they were just on on scenes that it was not a medical issue or it wasn't a police issue. And like, what can we do? Because before they just they had nobody to ask that. They just had to figure it out or not. Well, and then everyone's mad at that regardless.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, well, I mean, I can go on and on about that. Like, you know, you're a therapist, so you know as much as I do, there's shitty therapists out there, but they don't get the get the front page of the newspaper and be on ABC World News every night. But one cop does something really bad in Iowa, sorry for picking on Iowa, then suddenly all cops from Alaska to Hawaii and on the mainland are all shitty. And that's one of the unique challenges that I find is that they don't do that in any other profession. And I think there's some discrimination there. You talk about community stuff. I always tell people like, we we don't want everyone who's uh you know, whatever ethnicity, gender want to be treated the same way, but somehow we're allowed to treat cops all the same way, which seems to be quite discriminatory, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_03:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh and having someone like us who is able to talk about it and seen some stuff, because when you go to work on a crisis team, you do see stuff that maybe the regular population or civilians, as I like to call them, do not see. And I think that really helps them to relate to you, probably, and also make them like, oh, she can maybe get this shit.

SPEAKER_03:

I think too that that when you have that lived experience in the realm, or or even like as a spouse of such too, there's there's a greater sense of felt safety because they don't feel like they have to prove themselves to you, right? That they're not a bad guy.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And I think that makes a big difference in the line of work when you when you have had that experience. Cause I could not imagine, you know, like you're talking about these news headlines and experiencing that and being grouped into that and having to go to a therapist where you're like, okay, I want help. And then feeling the need to prove yourself that I am not like them. I'm not a bad guy. Right? It shouldn't be that way, but it is often.

SPEAKER_01:

It's usually like that. And it's also like therapists who are not experienced. I talk about cultural competency for first responder therapists as being essential because how many cops have come to me and or firefighters have said, you know, they wanted me to tell them their worst story, the worst story I ever had. Like, well, that's gossiping number one. And number two, who the fuck wants to talk about that, therapy or not? Right?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah. Steve, this is this is actually kind of mind blowing to me because I wrote that exact sentence down in my notes for today.

SPEAKER_00:

Which one?

SPEAKER_03:

Where I was like, I want to talk about this. The amount of clients I've had that have come to me and said that a past therapist has just wanted their war stories. Right. Or like they're doing an intake and they're like, oh my gosh, you must see really horrible things. And they're like, Well, yeah, no shit. And then their next question is like, what's what's the worst call you've ever been on? And like, oh my gosh, what in the world?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, it and it's that's the stuff that you know, you talk about that stuff. I this is why we need the cultural competency. Well, we can talk about that a little later on if you want to. Yeah. But you know, when you have experience as a crisis clinician and you work side by side with them, there's a whole different dynamic, I feel, happens. Not because you saw horrible shit. Well, we do, but that's not the point. It's the point of, oh, okay, maybe they're one of us, so to speak. We may not be quote first responders, but we're certainly one of them in the sense that we do need to deal with that and we're not horrified all the time. And sometimes we have dark humor. I think the other part too is I joke around that therapists who don't work with our field won't understand the dark jokes we make.

SPEAKER_03:

No. Yeah, I think I completely agree.

SPEAKER_01:

I would I I mean, we haven't responded in that way, but I'm sure you have a couple of really dark jokes. And we we have a bunch of people I'm working on with a group to vet people who are first responder therapists who are actually competent at doing so. And that's one of the questions. Tell us your darkest humor joke. And if it's not dark enough, we don't want you.

SPEAKER_03:

That's fair. So because not only like you know, you don't have to dish it out per se as a therapist therapist, but you have to be able to understand it and not try to like pathologize it, which is like what I feel like happens. Well, where's that coming from? Well, let me tell you, it's coming from these horrible experiences I've had for the last 10 years. Let's be real.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, you you just said you said it yourself, you know, why do we do that as the like a therapist? And when you go see your therapist, and like, you know, you're recreating, right? I'm like, yeah, I'm not here for that. Actually, yes, that's what you're doing in therapy. But yeah, we we do fit fit our past, right? And that's what it is, is that we're trying to fix our past too with that stuff. But that's just my experience growing up, like for me, the other motivator for working with first respond, not only is it the language I speak, because I might be in a white-collar job, but I'm not exactly Mr. Big Words, that's not my thing. Especially this is my second language, so it's even worse. But I think it's also being able to meet people. And if you didn't grow up with a blue-collar type of man like background, I think it's really hard to understand what they go through and what the job is.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

But you know, I think that what when you work on a crisis team like that, I I mean, I I'm sure that there's a lot of stuff that happens where you have some challenges, right? When I worked, we talked prior to the interview. When I worked in Vermont, getting first responders to go to therapy was already a challenge. Finding a therapist was even a bigger challenge, and finding a therapist that's what was within an hour. This is before telehealth, was even bigger. I mean, I was in Vermont in 2009. Telehealth was barely existing at that point, and so it's really hard. I mean, have you had any first hand experiences on how to work with first responders, or particularly with the trauma and accessing mental care mental health care because it's so difficult?

SPEAKER_03:

Not in 2009 because I was 11 then. But more recently.

SPEAKER_01:

I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh man. I think there's a couple. And I think the reality is they're probably not unique to just Alaska. I'm sure people in other places are gonna be like, yeah, we experience that too. So I think it's more maybe unique to small towns, right? And I think here in in the borough, you know, Alaska is known for being a big state, but we're not very populated. So Wasilla, where I live, has just over 13,000 people. And then in the entire Matsu borough, which is the area that that we served there, which I might get to say wrong in this, but I'm pretty sure it's bigger than West Virginia, is what I've been told, our borough. And it has about 110,000 residents. So that means really, whenever anything happens in this community, even if you're not the first responder involved in it, you still hear about it. Andor you know the people involved. You know, so the same first responder who's pulling individuals from a car accident, it is not unlikely for them to then pass that family in the grocery store a couple days later or be related to them, right? Or have known them from high school. And I think that is not necessarily unique to Alaska per se, but it is unique to those, the really small towns. And that that level of proximity and responsibility, I think, adds another layer of emotional complexity that you don't always see in the larger systems. I'm sure it's there, but I think you see it more in these smaller systems because the challenge per se isn't just lack of access to care. It's just like the double bind of it's the same people that are telling you, you know, like you're the one who holds the line, we rely on you, you're the strong one, we're calling you for help. But also you should ask for help if you need it. And so the moment that they try, there's there's this double bind. There's there's tension, right? Or the moment they want to try. And I think in Alaska, in my area specifically, privacy, it's it's a long time. And community ties run deep, and that's a great thing about living in a small town. But it also creates almost like an identity crisis.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

And because you know, if you if you speak up, people will know. It's likely people will know. And if you stay quiet, you're at risk of being under all of this weight, right? So it's it's this no-win situation that really traps, I think, helping professions, first responders most specifically, between the role that they play in the community and the human that they are.

SPEAKER_01:

And you I I love that because that's exactly what I just had a conversation today, actually, with a client of mine, where, you know, I do want my police officers to be ready for the worst case scenario. But then I'm like, okay, when you get home, I want you to be balanced. And they're like, what? I didn't say it that way, but you get the point. It's really botany. And you talk about small towns and small counties. You know, I'm not only Vermont. I remember a few years ago I was interviewed somewhere on uh I on uh Fox here in a local station. There was a murder suicide with two kids in a particularly small town. You can look it up if you want to. I just don't need to give the details. Uh they interviewed me and they said, What do you think the difficulty is? I said, It's a small town, so they all know each other, and highly likely the first responders who responded have a kid or have someone they know that knows that kid, and that makes it even harder to process all that stuff because you're supposed to be the authority, you're the cop, you're the firefighter, you're the paramedic EMT, whatever, it don't matter to me. Uh and then you got your own shit that comes from that. And where do you go? You can't turn to someone in Abington because there's an exposure thing. I'm picking on Abington, but whatever town, right? Because even in Massachusetts, I know you you're a little familiar with Massachusetts, you know, there's Boston, but then there's like Greenfield, which is in western mass, it's fairly isolated, it's not too far from Amherst, but it's like 5,000, 6,000 people. And I don't think it's a unique challenge for Alaska. I think that every like you go to New York State, everyone says New York State, uh New York City. I don't know if you've ever been to Poughkeepsie, but that's pretty isolated. You go to Syracuse, it's not like it's right in the you get snow like you do in Alaska and Canada. And I think that there's these unique challenges in every state in this country, and frankly, in North America, where yeah, sure, New York City is different, Boston's different, LA's different. I get that. But we all have smaller areas. You go to California, you end up in Dead Valley. There's a lot of small communities there that everyone knows everyone's business. And who do you turn to? The therapist who went on the call with you, and that seems even more exposing, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Yeah, the the issue of it, you know, it does absolutely run deeper because it's it's naturally going to be closer to home because there's only so many people in this town, right? And the the flip side of it too is that there's this confidentiality issue. And as much as I wish that there wasn't, there is. That's the reality, right? Like and you know, bring reality onto this podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Please keep on making me very well.

SPEAKER_03:

It's it's kind of nice in there sometimes, but you know, my office, for example, is like central Wasilla area and it's discreet, it's it's tucked away, thankfully, but it's located right between our central EMS fire station and our police department. So I mean when you think about like Alaska, I'm gonna pick on this a little bit that people like to drive very specific vehicles that are perhaps recognizable in a town where that's the case and in a field where everyone else knows your schedule, right? Like just parking outside of a therapist's office can feel like a threat to your privacy. I mean, I'm I'm tucked away. I'm like, in we don't actually have alleyways, I think, like in my borough, but it's like as close as you could get to one. And that's helpful, right? And and I tried to, you know, minimize signage. And I actually got got in trouble for that recently by insurance companies. They didn't appreciate that, even after I explained why. But yeah, even just parking outside of the office can feel like a threat to privacy. And I actually got curious last night and I searched because I end up referring people to other providers that are that are telehealth because I just didn't know of any in my area. And I grew up in this area. So you'd think you'd think I'd know. But I didn't. And I I ended up looking it up and I was like, oh, this is why I never knew the money because there's two. There's literally two in-person therapists in the area that explicitly say that they they work with first responders. There's probably others that will from you know, on a case-by-case basis, perhaps, but there's two that explicitly stated that. And based on their public bios, neither appear to have lived experience with the first responder culture, which I really do believe matters more than people realize. However, like I said, that I was just going off public information. I don't actually know. But all this to say, there's there's two. And in a town where everybody knows everybody, the reality is even if there are more, there'd be so much conflict of interest. I have that all of the time. Conflict of interest come up that makes it bordering unethical to serve these individuals, sometimes depending on your licensing board and how you want to look at that. But it's the reality of living in a small town. You can't really get around it.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I I can go on about ethics around that for a long time because while I get what the LPCs and the LMHCs and the L I CSWs of the world need to say, I worked in a small time in Vermont where there was me and like seven other therapists. So we ended up seeing family members of family members. And if you do your confidentiality very clearly and you set those limits and boundaries, there is ways to do it in an ethical way. I know the LPCs and the LMHCs in the world right now went and it gasped, but I really don't care in the sense that we need like sometimes you don't have a choice, it's just what it is. And I when you work with first responders, this is the other part too, right? You can tell me if I'm wrong. It's I'm assuming Alaska's exactly the same. My name, I don't if I stop advertising everything, not a website, not nothing. I know that I would still get phone calls because they're like, oh, department Holliston is where I'm at. Oh, the guy, the the detective in Holliston told me to call you and I'm in Amherst. I don't know anyone in Amherst, so that's why I'm trying to use a town I don't know. And they're like, Oh, okay, I hear you're competent. I always joke around and I say, Don't tell don't listen to lies. I'm really, really bad. Because now you're gonna expect a lot of results. I don't want that. But the joke, all joking aside, it it it is an ethical dilemma for some, but for me, I've decided that it's uh if you set the limits and the boundaries pretty quickly, and for me it's pretty easy, you might work in the same department. You ask me any questions about anyone that you know is seeing me, you're gone. I'm not negotiating with you, I'm not giving you a second chance, you're gone. And I think there's ways to do that. I know the LPCs would say borderline uh crossing boundaries. I mean, you can set good boundaries and not cross them.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, we have a duty too, as I'm I'm an LPC, and if it's between a possible conflict of interest from a scene I worked five years ago with this individual, or no service at all, then I think we have a duty to serve. And I will argue that till the day I die, and hopefully I don't have to, but I will if I need to.

SPEAKER_01:

I it a hundred percent. I mean, that happened in Vermont. Even here it happens, but I I'm very clear. And if someone's safety is at hand, I'm not going, that's a conflict of interest. How about you go hurt?

SPEAKER_03:

Can't help you.

SPEAKER_01:

Go hurt.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not doing that. So if uh the LMHC board in Massachusetts or the LPC boards in Alaska want to call me, go ahead, please do. I will I will fight that to the death anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

Let's chat.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. The other part too is that, you know, before I think we're gonna wrap up and go for another half hour because this we're just starting here. The one thing I wanted to ask you and maybe throw out and something, you know, as of January 2026, we now have the interstate compact stuff that we can finally do now. And I believe Alaska is part of it.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm not a hundred percent sure, but no, not not officially in an official capacity yet. And I don't know, I'll I'd have to do a little bit more digging, but I don't have a lot of faith that Alaska will jump into that actually, because this is as horrible as it sounds. I think it comes down to a rates issue, is what I kept reading. Because our cost of living in Alaska is higher and our we're typically reimbursed at a higher rate for those that accept insurance. And so from the things that I've read lately, that's really what it's coming down to, or some not what it's coming down to, but it's a lot of the pushback is if Alaska were to join, then we would have significantly lower rates of reimbursement. So this is just another step of like insurance companies want to fuck us, but right.

SPEAKER_01:

That's Massachusetts said the exact same thing because we have higher living cost of living, yeah. Cola here. So that's why they're not joining. And I'm like, that's bullshit. Because don't tell me that LA doesn't have a high cost of living. You live in Hawaii or Alaska, you gotta get everything delivered to you, and that's a lot of like that's a high cost of living. South Dakota, okay, I get it. Okay, South Dakota is a little different. I'm not picking on them, just giving an example. But don't tell me that Dallas doesn't have a high cost of living. Don't tell me that Miami doesn't. Yeah. It's a lot of horseshit. But anyway, I I believe that we need to work on getting interstate compact across the country for us. But as we I'm gonna wrap up here, and I want us if it's okay with you, we're gonna go to the next question probably in the next episode if that's okay with you.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that sounds great.

SPEAKER_01:

All right, join us on the other side, guys. We'll just give us a couple of days and then we'll come back.

SPEAKER_02:

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Steve Bisson

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