From Broken System to National Network: Trevor Colhoun on Building Change From the Ground Up

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How do you build something new when the existing system isn't working? Trevor Colhoun joins TrueLife to discuss systems change, entrepreneurship, community building, institutional failure, and the journey from a broken local system toward a national network.

This conversation explores leadership, resilience, innovation, organizational growth, and the practical challenge of creating alternatives rather than simply criticizing the status quo.

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My name is George Monty. I am the Owner of TrueLife (Podcast/media/ Channel) I’ve spent the last three in years building from the ground up an independent social media brandy that includes communications, content creation, community engagement, online classes in NLP, Graphic Design, Video Editing, and Content creation. I feel so blessed to have reached the following milestones, over 81K hours of watch time, 5 million views, 8K subscribers, & over 60K downloads on the podcast!

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Host: George
Guest: Trevor Calhoun, Founder of TPN.Health
Date: December 24, 2025
[Intro]
George:
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s December 24th. I hope your day is absolutely beautiful. Hope you’re hanging with your family, hope the birds are singing, hope the sun is shining today.
We’re joined by Trevor Calhoun, an incredible individual who reached the edge of a broken behavioral health system and chose not to complain, but to rebuild it from the inside out. What began as a single-state effort in Louisiana has grown into a verified national network—nearly 100,000 providers across all 50 states.
Not another platform layered on top of dysfunction, but an operating system designed to remove it: dissolving administrative drag, delivering free high-quality education, enabling human-led care navigation, and now moving directly into claims and reimbursement.
This isn’t disruption for its own sake. It’s clinically led, it’s patient-centered, and it’s quietly dismantling the gatekeeping structures that have turned care into bureaucracy.
Today, Trevor pulls back the curtain on what’s actually breaking in mental health, who’s absorbing the hidden costs, and why TPN.Health is becoming the connective tissue the entire ecosystem is about to depend on.
Trevor, thanks so much for being here today. How are you?
Trevor:
I’m awesome. Merry Christmas Eve to you, and thanks for having the opportunity to talk.
George:
Yeah, man. I’m excited to have you here. A while back, I started looking through LinkedIn and checking out your page, and I’m like, “Whoa, look at what’s going on here. This changes everything.”
Even though I gave you a bit of an introduction there, I was hopeful that you could re-introduce a little bit about how you got started, what the major goal is, and what you’re up to this year.
Incidentally, where did you pull that introduction from? Because that was really good.
Trevor:
Thank you very much. That was fantastic. It was really awesome. I’ll send it over to you when we’re done here. You’ve explained it well.
George:
Perfect. So let’s jump in. What motivated you to make this thing happen?
Trevor:
You know, it was kind of the rubber ball, right? You don’t really know what you have with the rubber ball until you start bouncing it.
I had a family member go through behavioral health, right alongside helping them through the process. I had a unique background in the financial markets—which isn’t sexy and isn’t fun at all, and I hated it—but that was my background.
Entering with that lens, in financial markets it’s all about information, transparency, data connection. That’s how people transact, see markets, price markets, see value.
As I went with this individual through the behavioral health journey, I realized: whoa, there is none of that.
Going to facilities, checking out, and being asked, “Okay, we’re sending them back home, Mr. Calhoun. Where do you want them to go?” And I’m thinking, why are you asking me—who knows nothing about behavioral health? Where’s the connectivity, the connected fiber of understanding this person’s clinical behavioral journey?
Like if I broke a leg—I go into the hospital system, I see my orthopedic or primary care doc, they assess me, I go down this clinical path. I might get a second opinion, but I innately know that process.
When we started TPN, we asked different questions. We didn’t ask how to make money or how to serve the ultimate patient/client. We asked: what is going on? What is systematically wrong here?
The root is that anybody who needs behavioral services—which is all of us at some scale—doesn’t understand the value proposition of behavioral health. I don’t understand who I need to see and how long I need to see them until I get peace with whatever issue I have.
If I don’t know those two things, I don’t know cost.
For some reason, behavioral health, mental health, and providers have treated capitalism and money as dirty words because it’s attached to all the screwing around with insurance. I get it.
But all parties involved have the same issue: they’ve been unable to demonstrate value proposition.
If I’m a provider and I say, “Come see me—once a week, every other week. We’ll talk about the loss of your wife, the anger, abandonment, loneliness. We’ll see how it goes.” But if I’m entering that thinking, “I make $100K a year, I’m not sure insurance covers this, I don’t know how long until recovery”—I don’t see the value, so I might not enter care.
If I’m an insurance company—an investment house taking your money—my best client is the healthiest one. So we’re aligned: I want you healthy because you’re not pulling from my dollars.
But insurance companies can’t quantify how to walk you through behavioral health. What is depression and anger? Is it DBT skills? Internal family systems? What does it cost? What percentage of these lives at this demographic and diagnosis get peace in ten sessions?
Those issues kill it from the beginning because there’s no distinguished value proposition.
That led us to: what makes a marketplace? What makes information and decisions?
The most powerful person is the clinician—the primary care doc equivalent—who drives the process.
Right now, who’s driving it? Idiots like me and you who don’t know much about behavioral health. “Oh, I have a drinking problem—this place has palm trees and a beach, nice rooms. I’m going there.”
That’s not clinical match care.
That’s why we’ve had issues in substance abuse—Google and others pushing people into unfit places to turn a buck. No fault of anyone—it’s a system not run by clinical professionals.
So we thought: if clinicians—social workers, psychologists, counselors, addiction counselors, interventionists—drive this market, how do we get them together?
We built what looks and feels like a LinkedIn marketplace for the B2B space so they can see the market: “I’m in Palm Springs today—I need to see who’s in Orange County who does DBT skills.”
We have 40–50 years of clinical research for diagnostic work. This person fits, takes their insurance, is available, has cultural competency, care alliance.
How do we get all that information at scale so a clinician can make the match?
We built it in five quarters. Launched in March 2020. And… nobody cared. Crickets.
People thought we were Psychology Today or something else. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and I don’t care.”
George:
What a surreal moment that must have been—all this time, planning, thinking this is a game-changer.
What happens then? You build it—they’re supposed to come.
Trevor:
Yeah, I thought we were Field of Dreams. “They’re going to love this.”
A couple things: clinicians don’t trust anybody. They’ve been sold snake oil over and over.
This is a highly educated universe—masters, doctorates, 3,000 hours of clinical work—massively underpaid, passionate, many have gone through therapy themselves.
But they didn’t learn how to run a business or practice, so they’ve been taken advantage of.
When we launched, COVID hit. We had a strong tech team.
We’d go to conferences, get booths, catch 20–25% of attendees—costly, not scalable.
Then we realized: we can build continuing education on top. It maps closely—we bring clinicians and train them.
We partnered with associations, facility leaders, universities to provide CE workshops.
Fast forward: two weeks ago, we did 72 CE workshops in one week.
We digitized it massively. 5 to 25 to 3,000 clinicians per workshop for ethics, clinical training, etc.
Our philosophy: be the digital home for providers to maintain, get, or elevate professional status—credentialing, training, best-of-the-best.
I might be in San Diego getting trained by New York experts I’d never reach.
Financially frictionless for providers.
We hear: “I don’t think anybody understands how we make money.”
We don’t make money off clinicians—our #1 user.
Like Uber (customer: passenger) or Lyft (customer: driver)—our biggest customer is the provider. We simplify their life to advance and thrive.
George:
Man, it’s such a time. I want to bring in a few people from stage.
Shout out to Juliet—great idea, Care Alliance. “I hear a lot of ‘I found my people,’ Business Alliance.”
My friend Jessie Munreal—doing amazing things in addiction: “Yep, burned out by massive structures in healthcare. Not appreciated, told what to implement by people with no patient contact, measured by irrelevant metrics. Hard to trust anyone claiming to be on our side.”
Trevor, what would you tell someone like Jessie?
Trevor:
I hear you. I wouldn’t trust either.
We don’t ask for trust or money. Just try it out.
Simplest entry: our continuing education—live, on-demand, high quality, free.
Because we have this digital relationship—know credentials, licenses, demographics, cultural competency—we can do significant things.
We’re directly connected with payers—no middleman.
We work with third-party administrators managing lives (e.g., Chick-fil-A cares about employees).
Families text a number—talk to a licensed care navigator in seven minutes.
They diagnose, personality match, care alliance, diagnostic match.
We directly contract providers on our network—pay at their cash rate. We take nothing.
Value created: providers get paid their contracted rate, claims paid in <30 days, plus referrals (optional).
No indentured work—autonomy preserved.
Heart surgeons don’t fix legs.
Because we’re large, we break down silos.
Ghost networks: insurers contract providers, then relationship ends. Info goes cold in three months. They’re selling a network they don’t have—getting sued.
We digitize: handle credentialing, paneling. We’re a PPO network.
George:
It’s amazing.
From Discord—Desiree: “Where’s the behavioral health system—especially referrals, networks, admin—most dishonest right now about how broken it is?”
How much trouble do we want? As much as we can.
Trevor:
We’ve been quiet, but we’re 92,000 providers, growing 4–5K/month. Nobody grows like us.
We did this passionately to solve a problem—not to make money initially.
Existing “systems” aren’t systems.
Why do providers take cash pay? They have no idea how to get reimbursed—or wait 90–180 days.
Only ~20 CPT codes in behavioral health—not many.
No efficient claims system.
Health plans increase reimbursement—who cares if you’re making $150K and waiting 90 days? You’d take less for faster payment.
Behavioral health historically siloed—hang a shingle, small office—because no CapEx or liability like physical health.
Now we’re scaling without taking from providers.
Referral networks think tight geographic or marketplaces—but miss supply of lives.
Lives want one vendor handling scale (e.g., Disney across states).
They cut provider rates drastically.
Not okay.
George:
Great point.
Juliet: As a private payer, I’d rather cash pay for training/expertise fit. Expensive, but I pay for quality and fit.
Trevor:
Goes to value-based care and quality.
Behavioral health shunned capitalism—to their detriment.
What if in our network you get paid more—and we track outcomes (40 years of research)?
We connect via SMS (not app).
Track outcomes at scale—thousands of lives.
Understand value prop of each therapist—agnostic.
If Juliet gets 70% of women 30–45 with anxiety/depression improving after six months—payers/employers will pay more.
Sounds like physical health: good doctors in demand because measurable.
We’re not measuring anything in behavioral health.
Payers will pay for tracking—they want outcomes, no surprise bills (e.g., ER for panic attack).
Capture early—costs go down.
Therapists get patients to stability/thriving.
George:
Alignment—who’d have thought?
It’s okay for therapists to make money. They should be paid like doctors.
Specialists will emerge making more—mental health as valuable as physical mobility.
George:
Thomas from Virginia: You’ve got almost 100K verified providers. When does the network hit the point where payers have to route everything through TPN and the power flips?
Trevor:
It’s slowly happening.
We don’t control it—we thank blessings.
We’ve knocked on health plan doors—they said no.
That’s changing on cost basis.
Nonprofits crushed behavioral health—well-intended but lights must stay on.
We want to be digital infrastructure of behavioral health.
Providers: build practice, elevate, connect, ethical referrals, transparency, controls.
We see clinician hours, licensure needs—helpful for big practices (e.g., Acadia, Meadows).
Burnout: not valued/cared for.
We help with targeted trainings.
Most in behavioral health are fantastic humans wanting tools to help.
George:
They see destruction of families—heartbreaking.
ER docs reach out—we can move patients out.
Hospitals/execs often ignore.
Frustrating—clogs ER for real emergencies.
George:
Neil: You’re dissolving administrative burdens nobody else could touch. When do clinicians look back and say TPN freed them?
Trevor:
Administrative burdens melt in a digital marketplace.
Early career: took trade tickets to “the cage”—manual entry. That job gone—now one button.
Our real-time live network—engagement, digital utility—understands needs.
We don’t sell data (not Meta/Google). Providers decide engagement.
George:
Question: If you burned it all down, what are the absolute non-negotiables for TPN?
Trevor:
The foundation: relationship with providers—honoring them so they feel safe through actions/utility.
We hear “not enough therapists”—nobody has right to ask that.
Regulators (e.g., New York) know ~80% accuracy on licensed/not—nothing else: location, virtual/in-person, availability, networks, education.
We have no market data—turning 2026 with AI, and we don’t know?
George:
Biggest milestone in 2025?
Trevor:
Consistently 3–5K providers/month—flywheel moment.
Market recognizing value—coming back for more.
Excited for next year: promise is improved outcomes via seamless clinical connections, care alliance.
Team growing—not prepared emotionally for how consequential this is.
George:
Revolutionary—bring value to those needing it most.
Dangerously beautiful when it starts working.
Trevor:
Grateful for this—getting more candid/aggressive about who we are.
Used to be quiet—now it’s working. Exciting and scary.
George:
Last question: If a clinician wants to help replace the old system instead of complaining, where should they jump in first?
Trevor:
Intuitive on TPN.health.
Large groups contract all providers.
Journey starts with CE.
Like LinkedIn—connect.
We’ll credential/fix issues.
Doing 3-hour AI ethics training next week (AI has no place in patient interaction—human only).
Bring thought leaders, best practices, toolboxes (taxes, practice building).
Next year: tracks for new grads—supervision matching what you want.
Nonsense to grab wrong supervisor.
Our head of sales (Sarah Duke)—counselor, burnt out in psych hospital. Wrong supervision, facility not listening.
Now there is somewhere to go.
George:
I’m grateful for what you’re building—clinician-led, true solutions.
Opportunity for everyone to be part of the solution.
Congratulations—courage to do it.
Trevor:
Appreciate that. Building a business isn’t easy—making payroll barely for years.
Therapy helped—sat with Dick Schwartz (IFS founder). Unbelievable healing journey—grace, gratitude.
Key factors in quality life.
George:
Real-world experience on all sides makes systems effective.
Kick it back: where can people find you? What’s coming up?
Trevor:
Thank you for the platform—super grateful.
People will hear a lot about us next year—no marketing/PR before, changes in January.
Start at tpn.health.
Next year: millions of lives insured through us—shepherding behavioral care.
This year was Petri dish—scaled systems.
For clinicians: take a chance. Sounds too good to be true—pendulum swing from being screwed so long.
We’ll find unintended consequences together.
Receptive to feedback—build around clinician needs.
George:
Ladies and gentlemen, tpn.health—QR code on screen, links in show notes.
Trevor, hang on afterwards.
To everyone who participated—Juliet, Desiree, Jessie Munreal, Thomas, Neil, and more—thanks for hanging out.
Hope you have a beautiful Christmas. We’ll catch you later this week.
Have a beautiful day. Aloha.
Trevor:
Thank you.