BAINBRIDGE, Ga. — After losing his farm to Hurricane Michael, a South Georgia farmer has created one solution to the mental health crisis in his rural community.
If you ask him what he does now, Eric Cohen will say, “I’m in the real estate business and telehealth business.”
Until Hurricane Michael in October 2018, Cohen was a full-time farmer and owner of a pecan orchard in Bainbridge, Georgia.
Hurricane Michael hit the Florida coast as a Category 5 and maintained momentum as a Category 3 storm, plowing a devastating path through Georgia.
It caused more than $2 billion in agricultural damage.
“After Hurricane Michael, I didn’t really have a choice. I had to pivot because we lost about 800 acres of our farm,” Cohen said.
Cohen lost generational money when the storm leveled his pecan trees, a product that takes 10 years to grow and bear fruit. Cohen says the devastation sent him into a dark place, and he could see the emotional darkness permeating his community.
“I could see the mental illness crisis going on with everybody. It wasn’t just farmers. It was everybody,” he said.
On a recent panel during the Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Forum at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Commissioner Kevin Tanner said a disproportionate number of calls to the new suicide crisis line 988 come from rural Georgia.
“(There are) two reasons we’ve identified for that. One is the lack of resources for rural Georgia, but number two is just stigma,” Commissioner Tanner said.
To find a solution within his community, Cohen partnered with Brad Mullen, founder of the telehealth company BasiCare Plus.
It’s not insurance but rather a membership-based health care plan. A $60 membership covers a family of nine.
Along with providing physical care and prescriptions, the company offers on-demand therapists that people can access from their computers or phones.
“In rural Georgia, we just don’t have access to doctors like in big cities. Even if you can get a therapist, you’re two or three months out,” he said.
The plan is available nationwide. Mullen says it works well for truck drivers, personal care homes, and college students, but most of its users live in rural America.
Cohen is now the company’s CEO.
“This has been one of the most rewarding things that I’ve ever done because it truly helps people,” Cohen said. “This is the easiest way to get rural America telehealth medicine.”
To learn more about BasiCare Plus, click here.