Wellness Reimagined: Dr. Nicole Fallah-Helo Of Meadowglade On 5 Things That Should Be Done To Improve and Reform The Health & Wellness Industry

An Interview With Maria Angelova

I would advise would be to tighten and increase regulations governing the health and wellness industry, particularly with FDA regulations in areas of safety and labels, as we have seen far too many products sold with unregulated ingredients known to be harmful to public health such as phthalates, parabens, and PFAs. In contrast, others have falsely claimed the inclusion of other advertised ingredients found barely present in the products. By making just some of these changes and reforms, we will see a more accountable health and wellness industry in which the general public can place more trust.

In our world of constant change, and with life moving faster than ever, topics such as mental health, self-care, and prevention have become popular buzzwords. People are looking to live healthier lives, and there is superb care out there that is being offered. At the same time, there are misconceptions about the meaning of self-care and exercise. Many opt for quick solutions — surgery, pills — to dull the problem without adequately addressing the underlying cause. Meanwhile, many parts of the industry are unregulated and oversaturated. People with years of training are competing with people with weekend training. Many providers are overworked, overwhelmed, and underpaid. The general public is not educated about asking the right questions when selecting a wellness provider. In the face of all this, what can be done to correct the status quo? In this interview series, we are seeking to hear from a variety of leaders in the health and wellness industries who agree that the wellness industry is in need of an overhaul and offer suggestions about what can be done moving forward. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Nicole Fallah-Helo.

Dr. Nicole Fallah-Helo is the Executive Director of The Meadowglade, a retreat style mental health rehabilitation center which focuses on mental health, trauma, and eating disorders. Dr. Nicole Fallah-Helo’s mission is to reimagine the health & wellness industry through compassionate client-centered care, combining science and holistic approaches for tailored treatment to meet all patient needs.

Thank you so much for doing this interview. It is an honor. Our readers would love to learn more about you and your personal background. Can you please share your personal backstory? What has brought you to this point in your life?

Thank you for inviting me, as I am very excited to be working with such an empowering and inspiring magazine. In terms of my background, I was born in Iran and moved to the UK with my parents and younger brother as a small child. It was not until my early twenties, right after completing my bachelor’s degree, when I relocated to the US and, of course, the rest is history. I moved into the realm of healthcare working for non-profit organizations like Cedar-Sinai, then progressively moving up the ladder into management roles for other organizations across new healthcare landscapes from medical education to clinical roles. During that period, I gave birth to my daughter, who became an even bigger career motivator. It drove me to pursue my dreams of gaining my Masters and later Doctoral degrees. These degrees helped me to grow into more senior roles in the healthcare operational sphere. Today as a healthcare executive in the mental health space, I honestly couldn’t feel more blessed and at home working in my field of choice with the knowledge that I can truly make a difference while doing what I love to do.

What is your “why” behind the work that you do? What fuels you?

There are several reasons I feel I was driven to do the work I do but, I would say the primary reasons fueling me would be to serve the community from a strong platform as a leader. It has given me the ability to use my voice to advocate for others in need, particularly minorities and immigrants like my own family, which allows me to make a real and sustainable impact. I also wake up every day to serve as a role model to my daughter so she can see that women can also achieve the highest leadership positions, and do rewarding and amazing things every single day that can create positive change in others’ lives.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting new projects you are working on now?

We have so many exciting new initiatives in development. These include an excellent series of mental health educational workshops to help engage and include all members of our community. The workshops will have a range of topics, such as building coping mechanisms, recognizing toxic relationship patterns, increasing mental health awareness, and knowledge of all the resources available. In addition, we are looking to create a range of collaborative partnerships with other incredible local non-profit organizations, from supporting our homeless communities to free local clinics. Lastly, we have recently launched an excellent new YouTube series and Podcast dedicated to mental health topics such as PTSD and trauma recovery, with interviews with world-renowned experts in the psychology field.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

A little earlier in my healthcare career, I was roughly six months pregnant with my daughter and putting together a continuing medical educational event for physicians at our hospital. That hospital was Cedar-Sinai, and while I was waiting for more staff to arrive and assist me as I struggled to move our heavy display and conference materials, a kind-faced gentleman walked by me with a concerned look and asked if I needed help. Tired and slightly exasperated, I dropped a few heavy bags of materials onto the floor with barely a word and ushered where to drop them, to which he happily and promptly obliged. Then, before I even could thank him, he was swiftly gone. It was a few seconds later that one of the staff members arrived and ran to me, aghast, saying, “Nicole, why did you throw all of that stuff on him!” When I found out the kind man who had rushed to help me was our President & CEO, Dr. Thomas Priselac. Nevertheless, despite my evident faux pas, I was heartened by his thoughtful nature and immediate response to an employee’s call for help. I also learned an important lesson in leadership that day, which was that great leaders always serve and put their people first, even when those people consist of tired and grumpy pregnant women with heavy bags they clearly couldn’t carry.

OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. From where you stand, why are you passionate about the topic of Reimagining The Health and Wellness industries? Can you explain what you mean with a story or an example?

I’m passionate about reimagining the health and wellness industries, especially in mental health treatment. I will illustrate why with a short patient experience example.

I once met a wonderful young woman and sexual assault survivor battling severe anxiety and depression. Despite trying various therapies and treatment centers, she remained hopeless and had sadly attempted suicide twice. Her story was all too common to many in our profession, highlighting a need for change.

Through experiences with patients like this, we realized that traditional approaches were not enough. To truly help individuals like her, we needed an innovative and holistic approach. We started combining evidence-based therapies like EMDR and ART treatment with technology, nutrition, mindfulness, and physical activity. Our empathetic environment empowered clients like her, and over time, this approach made a profound difference in patient lives, vastly improving recovery and post-recovery outcomes.

Her transformation was genuinely inspiring. Her anxiety and depression improved, and she later became a mental health advocate, joining our team to help others and spread awareness in the community. Her journey reinforces my passion for reimagining health and wellness, making mental health care accessible, affordable, and stigma-free. This commitment drives me as our treatment center’s leader, pushing boundaries to change and transform lives truly.

When I talk about Reimagining the Wellness industry, I am talking about reimagining it from the perspective of the providers as well as from the perspective of the recipients and patients. Can you share a few reasons why the status quo is not working for both providers and patients?

Absolutely. The wellness industry certainly needs reimagining for providers and patients because the current status quo reveals a number of significant issues. These include excessively high healthcare costs, limited access to quality care, particularly in underserved areas needing help the most, and mental health stigma deterring patients from seeking help, resulting in fewer providers to specialize in these fields. Adding to these core problems, lacking innovation and outdated systems retain traditional, less relevant treatment options rather than embracing the new advancements available. Finally, major burnout and stress experienced by providers due to increasing workloads, further exacerbated by the recent public health crisis, all contribute to declining morale and, in turn, provider job satisfaction, ultimately impacting the quality of patient care. Consequently, we can create a more efficient and affordable model for all by evaluating these systemic issues and working to address them with more customized, practical solutions through collaborative efforts across healthcare systems.

Why do you think there is a good opportunity now to improve and reform the health and wellness industry?

There is a unique window of opportunity to improve and reform the health and wellness industry immediately because we finally have momentum on openly discussing issues within our healthcare system, particularly mental health. These timely conversations include hot topics on the growing problem of homelessness to the concerning rise in anxiety and depression among adolescents and more. Moreover, watching the decades long taboo and stigma of mental health slowly slip away, makes it a particularly opportune time to encourage reform as public support towards improving and bettering the health and wellness industry has never been stronger.

Can you please share your “5 Things That Should Be Done To Improve and Reform The Health & Wellness Industry”?

There are a number of things that can be done to improve and reform the health and wellness Industry. First and foremost, patient access and affordability are one of the most crucial areas for improvement, and sadly, in the case of our lower-income communities, this is one area they are most negatively impacted by. Time and time again, I have witnessed countless patients from underserved communities come in at the worst stages of health, as they could not access quality care earlier on. As a result, they were forced to leave their issues unaddressed until they reached dire straits, ranging from advanced wounds to severe, spiraling mental illnesses. Another key measure would be to work to promote and educate the public on actual, evidence-based practices over the damaging pseudoscience and highly unregulated claims we often face in the field. Such as the deliberately misleading commercials we constantly see in areas of weight loss, anti-aging, and other quick-fix cures to issues. Claims that often remain unsubstantiated and rarely supported by scientific evidence.

Thus, public education is the third key measure that must be adopted to truly see any improvements and reform in the health and wellness industry. By working to educate and further teach the public to think more critically, they can learn to make more objective decisions based on science and facts versus conspiracy theories and other baseless claims, as seen in the case of many anti-vaccine activists miseducating the public. The fourth measure would be to see more widespread inclusion of mental health services and support programs in everything. This could range from regular family practice clinics adding mental health services to work programs providing employees with mental health resources such as counseling services. Also, the government needs to fund such programs to support mental health. Sadly, in California alone, we still feel the devastating effects of the Reagan administration’s defunding of mental healthcare in 1981, including the sustaining impact on homelessness today. On a positive note, I have been introduced to some incredible non-profit organizations, such as Community Conscience in Conejo Valley, California. It is an inspiring organization dedicated to providing a plethora of resources to underserved communities, particularly people experiencing homelessness. Yet, so much more could be done with additional grants and support from the government to help make a more significant and enduring difference.

Finally, the fifth key measure I would advise would be to tighten and increase regulations governing the health and wellness industry, particularly with FDA regulations in areas of safety and labels, as we have seen far too many products sold with unregulated ingredients known to be harmful to public health such as phthalates, parabens, and PFAs. In contrast, others have falsely claimed the inclusion of other advertised ingredients found barely present in the products. By making just some of these changes and reforms, we will see a more accountable health and wellness industry in which the general public can place more trust.

From the recipient and patient side of the industry, can you please share a few ways that patients and recipients should reimagine what the wellness and healthcare industry should provide?

From my personal experience with patients, one primary area would be providing more health equity through increased access to services and resources limited to them. Adding to that problem would be the unaffordability and often hidden costs of many healthcare services, such as a simple annual checkup or basic health screening, making it a must that more pricing transparency be provided for healthcare services as a whole. Patients could make more informed decisions on what they can afford, from their health insurance plans to the specialty services they seek. Furthermore, patients should reimagine being provided care that is more patient-centered in its approach rather than serving profit-based needs. This is evidenced by many insurance companies often limiting and sometimes even eliminating necessary services like mental health care for cost reduction over patient well-being. Thus, patients can contribute to myriad improvements to the current healthcare system through more active involvement in their healthcare plans and collectively advocating for their needs and those of others.

What do you think are the biggest roadblocks to reforming the industry? What can be done to address those hurdles?

​​Time and time again, the biggest roadblocks to reforming the industry always resurface as barriers of affordability arising from the exorbitant and rising cost of healthcare and the expensive and limited health insurance options out there. The results can be seen in vastly reduced patient access to critical services. For the latter obstacle, one of the most effective measures would be to increase funding towards expanding our existing Medicare/Medicaid services, helping us work towards a universal healthcare system to support all our patients in the community. Other roadblocks include the ongoing profit-motivated interests of large corporations prioritizing financial gain over patient interests. However, with more regulatory measures to govern these practices and concerted government efforts to encourage more corporate social responsibility via rewards for ethical practices, actions like these will help address some of these hurdles.

I’m very passionate about the topic of proactive versus reactive self-care and healthcare. What do you think can be done to shift the industries towards a proactive healthcare approach? How can we shift the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike?

To shift towards a proactive healthcare approach, healthcare providers must focus on preventive care for all. The measures include driving routine health screenings for specific services at required ages, such as reminders for all women over 40 for annual mammograms, and then tracking and monitoring those interventions to gauge the efficacy of those efforts. Additionally, increasing patient education to drive more patient inclusion via active involvement in their healthcare plans would create proactive change as consumers are far more likely to help providers support their healthcare needs. Thus, the best way to shift the self-care mindset for consumers and providers would be to empower consumers to be more involved in their healthcare treatment plans and decisions by arming them with the necessary education, resources, and options to help them proactively take ownership of their health and future.

Thank you for all that great insight! Let’s start wrapping up. Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?

My favorite life lesson quote lies in the famous words of Nietzsche, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” I think this resonates with me and, indeed, so many others because it captures the essence of what every person on this earth endures daily to get by. Moreover, Nietzsche acknowledges that existence yields suffering, conveying that by genuinely accepting and embracing pain as a necessary component of all our lives, one can grow stronger and gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of life.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)

There are so many incredible leaders out there making a difference in our world who inspire me every day, so it would be very difficult to pinpoint just one. That said, I think in the health and wellness industry, it would have to be the fantastic powerhouse voice for all women, Brene Brown. As an outspoken mental health thought leader and authority on managing shame, vulnerability, and imperfection, a mission I personally strive to raise awareness on, I couldn’t imagine a better person to have lunch with!

I appreciate your time and valuable contribution. One last question, how can people reach or follow you?

Thank you and people can follow my me on Instagram: @embraceimperfectionsbydrnicole and also subscribe to my YouTube channel dedicated to discussions on mental health at https://www.youtube.com/@embraceimperfectionsbydrnicole

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.