They specialize in reducing anxiety. But if anyone could use a good therapist right about now, it’s the 60 or so social workers and mental-health case managers who crowded into a meeting room Thursday evening at the Auburn Public Library.

“I’ve heard from a social worker whose house is under foreclosure. I’ve heard from a social worker who had to borrow money from family,” said Susan Dore Lamb, executive director of the National Association of Social Workers – Maine Chapter. “People who are used to dealing with people in crisis are themselves in crisis right now. Only it’s a financial crisis.”

And it’s affecting some 550 mental health clinicians and case managers statewide, all of whom are affiliated with the soon-to-be-defunct Possibilities Counseling Inc. of Auburn.

In a perfect world, here’s how it was supposed to work: A licensed therapist or case manager, rather than deal directly with the state’s Mainecareprogram or various private insurers, contracted with Possibilities Counseling to provide referrals and handle his or her billing and other administrative responsibilities.

Possibilities then prepared the bills, submitted them and paid its “affiliates” upfront with what was essentially a bridge loan from another firm called Provider Financial. Then, when Mainecare or another insurer paid the claim, Possibilities used that money to repay Provider Financial.

Bottom line: By contracting with Possibilities, the counselors and case managers could count on a steady cash flow and focus on their clients rather than on navigating the administrative maze that stands between submitting an insurance claim and actually getting paid.

Or so they thought.

Last August, 16 of Possibilities’ 18 office employees abruptly resigned. Twice over the next few weeks, inspectors from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services descended on the company’s headquarters and discovered an organization whose wheels were fast coming off.

The state found that Possibilities President Wendy Bergeron had filled her many vacancies with friends and family members who had neither undergone required background checks nor been properly trained.

The inspectors also found “several racks of client files in an unsecured location. These files were available to anyone who walked by the office space.”

Citing these and other “serious deficiencies,” the state notified Possibilities on Sept. 21 that the agency had one year to clean up its act. Nine days later, Bergeron notified DHHS through her attorney that she planned to shut down the business at the end of October.

Which brings us back to all those providers, many of whom rely almost exclusively on Mainecare payments to make a living.

“Most of us have not been paid at all by (Possibilities) since the first week of September,” said Jennifer Finck, a licensed clinical social worker from Gorham who organized last week’s meeting. “I am personally owed $5,000. And I’m near the low end. There are people who are owed anywhere from $1,000 upward to $19,000.”

Thursday’s gathering, the first by Possibilities’ affiliates since the checks stopped coming, was part therapy, part strategy session.

One after another, providers lamented how patient files and other sensitive documents, all protected by federal privacy laws, routinely were lost by Possibilities’ office staff.

They told of bills they’d submitted to Possibilities months ago that never found their way to Mainecare, or claims that have been paid to Possibilities by Mainecare without any of the money ever coming back to them.

They nodded in unison as colleague after colleague described the desperate phone calls to Possibilities that have gone unanswered, the on-again, off-again promises that they’d be paid soon, the sense that even as they feel bound by their code of ethics to continue to take care of their clients without payment, no one out there seems willing or able to take care of them.

“Who’s going to help us?” asked Catherine Coombs, a licensed clinical social worker from Farmingdale. “We help so many people and we work really hard and no one wants to help us. And that’s not OK.”

Contacted Friday, DHHS Commissioner Brenda Harvey said there’s little the state can do – at least when it comes to payments already made by Mainecare that were not passed on to providers.
“When (the providers) signed on to be part of Possibilities, they essentially took on the burden of being a subcontractor with Possibilities – with the risks and benefits associated with that,” Harvey said.
The fact that many of those providers have now been left holding the bag, Harvey added, “is something I have great empathy about, but not something I can do anything about because it’s not our direct responsibility.”

In other words, it’s time to call in the lawyers.

Gregg Frame and Adam Taylor, attorneys with the Portland firm Taylor, McCormack & Frame, attended Thursday’s meeting to hear the litany of complaints not only from those in the room, but some three dozen other providers who watched via the Internet.

The two lawyers explained the basics behind a class-action suit and told the providers that at this point, it’s probably their best shot at recovering at least some of the money they’re owed.

By Friday afternoon, Frame said, at least 80 providers from around the state had called his firm to say they wanted in.

“From all indications, we will probably be proceeding forward with this case,” Frame said. But, he added, “there’s still a lot of unscrambling of the eggs that needs to take place.”

Indeed. Possibilities and Bergeron, its president, already are embroiled in a lawsuit with Affiliate Funding Inc. (also known as Provider Financial) over what led up to Possibilities’ sudden collapse.

Speaking for Bergeron on Friday, attorney John Geismar of the Portland firm Norman, Hanson & DeTroy said his client is “immensely bothered” by the fact that the providers have not been paid.
“Possibilities and Wendy are deeply disturbed at the position the clinicians have been put into,”  Geismar said. “And she’ll continue to work to get them paid as quickly as possible.”

The providers will believe that when they see it. While nobody can say with any certainty yet how much their losses total, the estimates Thursday evening were in the millions.

“Five-hundred-and-fifty (providers) is a huge number,” said Lamb, noting they represent almost half the membership of the social workers association’s Maine chapter.

“Right now they feel victimized and disempowered,” Lamb added. “Much like many of their own clients.”

Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at: bnemitz@mainetoday.com