The Psychiatrist Who Took the DOJ to Trial

Cost me $1 million.

$1 million in legal fees.

Yes. To defend myself.

So just how would that change your life?

You become, you become a convicted felon. You can't vote anymore. Your voice is gone.

Yeah.

Your practice is gone. You wouldn't be able to continue.

You wouldn't be able to continue practicing.

Could you?

I mean, would your license get suspended?

It would get suspended. You just have to spend time in jail. They were not gonna accept anything where you don't spend time in jail. They consider you a criminal.

You didn't build your clinic to feel like an employee in your own business. I'm Matthew Calogli, and on Out of the System hosted by Dr. Talks, we challenge the broken rules holding healthcare entrepreneurs back. Hear from clinic owners, rebels, and builders who are creating bold, profitable, patient-centered practices and doing it their way. Dr. Muhammad Ali Rafai, right? Do I have that correct?

You got it right.

You got it right. So the greatest, the greatest, greatest of all time.

Yes.

Um, tell everybody who you are and what you do.

I am Muhammad Ali Rafai, Dr. Rafai. I'm a psychiatrist and internist, and I help people who are under pressure optimize their brain performance and function.

Okay. And, uh, by the way, thank you for being on the podcast because my pleasure. What, what intrigued me, and for those of the, we have lots of people that listen to us on a regular basis, so we always highlight people that have, that are leaving systems, abusive systems. Yes. What intrigued me about your story is a couple of things is one, like a lot of our clients, You dealt with a Medicare fraud case. They, the Department of Justice came after you. We'll talk about that.

Absolutely.

They came after you hard. Absolutely. And you beat 'em.

Yes.

Okay. So we're gonna talk about that. But then also the fact that, you know, we, in our work with doctors, and we work with a lot of orthopedic surgeons, pain management, um, urologists, you know, and general surgeon surgery, all of that coming into the, you know, now we, we're much broader than that, but those are kind of where our, our beachheads were. We noticed that there's a lot of, one of my doctors called it once, called it grooming, that there's a lot of, um, the pressure of going through residency and all of that and what that does to the body and the nervous system and how it, and the PTSD that people deal with. So love to dive into that as well. So absolutely. Let's start with you and your story. Um, you went to school in Syria, right?

Yes.

Yes. How did you wind up here in the States? Tell us a little bit about Why psychiatry? Why, what intrigued you about the human mind?

So my, my family's originally from Syria, but I have a lot of family members who are here in the United States. Mm-hmm. So I actually spent part of my childhood here in the United States. That's why I speak—

I was gonna say your— yeah, it's either a lot of training or spent a lot of time here.

So, um, spent a lot of time here in the United States as a, as a child. Mm-hmm. And, um, went back to medical school in Syria.

Mm-hmm.

Because my parents wanted me to be with them, um, at that time. But I was lucky to do my residency here in the United States at the University of Virginia. Oh, go for it. And because I am a Middle Eastern, I listened to my parents. My parents, when I told them I wanted to become a psychiatrist, they said, well, that's fine. Could you do something else with psychiatry where like you're a real doctor? Yeah.

So I, you're not a real doctor, you know, dealing with the mind and emotions.

So I actually went for combined residency in internal medicine and psychiatry. Ah. I'm board certified. I'm certified in internal medicine.

So why internal medicine? What was the, what was the attachment for you? Where was the connection between psychiatry and internal medicine?

Brain and the mind.

Okay.

And, and the body.

Okay.

Altogether. And it, this was rural Penn— uh, Virginia.

Mm-hmm.

And they needed to train doctors to manage both psychiatric issues and medical problems.

Okay.

And University of Virginia had that program for rural Virginia to train doctors to be there. And I'm lucky that I am in rural Pennsylvania now. for the last 20 years treating people who have nobody else to treat.

How much does, now are you, do you study a lot in like the functional medicine space, like gut health and things of that nature as well?

Absolutely. Okay. I'm very, very active in, in that field too.

What's the connection between gut health and brain health and mental health?

There's, there's a very, very strong connection. I mean, we used to think, take me through it. We used to think that people got depressed because of serotonin. Mm-hmm. And, um, uh, norepinephrine and dopamine. But now we know it's all the inflammation, all the inflammatory processes that happen in the gut, the gut microbiome, and how is that also affecting kind of the brain? So we never, for example, when I trained, nobody knew anything about C-reactive protein, something that we check on a regular basis now, high sensitivity C-reactive protein, because inflammation. Translates into inflammation in the brain, translates into depression, anxiety, sometimes even psychosis. Okay.

So what's causing the inflammation of the gut? What's, what's causing that? Is it just our food supply? Walk me through that.

What— A variety of things. Stress, food supply, environment, um, just living.

Yeah. Just the day-to-day living.

Yes.

Is it more prevalent? Do you feel like It's more prevalent here in the United States, say in like France or Germany, or—

It's traveling all over the world now.

So it's a hit. It's all over.

It's all over the world.

Is it that we're more aware of it, that we're better to diagnose it? Do you think, is it, or is it on the uprise? Is it on the uptick?

I think it's on the uptick. That means the world, the world is just a stressful place for everybody. Yeah.

Pushing 8 billion people.

It's stressful. If you live, if you live in the, in the, in the rural areas of Africa, if you live in Bangladesh or you live in the United States on Main Street. It's a stressful place.

You know, I had a client, um, Kent Holtorf, Dr. Holtorf. He's in El Segundo, California. Kent's one of these guys. He's like you. He's taken on the Department of Justice like 3 times.

There you go.

And he's just kind of nonchalant about it. He goes, yeah, I take it about where I want. It's just like, he's just so, he's really, and Kent, if you're listening, you know how much I love you. But, uh, he's very, he's like, he, he travels at his own rhythm, his own beat of his own drum. Like, You know, time is just some imaginary construct to him. Brilliant man though. So he's in our mastermind one day and we're talking about this topic, functional health, gut health. This is like 3 years ago. And he's just sitting there and he goes, I already solved this. Like, what do you mean? And he goes, I've written like 3 papers on it. Here you go. Sends the link out to everybody. He goes, we took guys off the streets that were Navy SEALs, right? Special Forces went from 250 pounds. perfect health, right? To 120 pounds mumbling to themselves, right? Just living on the streets. Fix their gut health. Bam. They're back. Like, and everybody in the room was just the way Kent talks about things. It's just like, yeah, I already learned how to tie my shoes. Like, it's literally like that.

Yes.

In your experience, you feel, what's your thought on it? Do you, do you feel like we can help this mental illness of the people in the streets just by simply taking care of the inflammation and the gut health? Is that a good, a big part? I know it's not a pan— I know it's not 100%, but it's, it's a big part.

Yeah. How big, man?

How big would you say?

Very big.

I mean, I, I, I, 50%.

I healed myself. I used to weigh 400 pounds.

Get outta here.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, uh, I'm 275 and I wanna lose another 50 pounds.

Fantastic.

Good for you. And, and, and that was, that was because of all of the stress that I was going through and nobody appreciated it.

Yeah. Was it the stress to the Department of Justice and the—

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Okay. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about 2024.

Yes.

Uh, May 9th. Do I remember that correctly?

Yes.

Yeah.

That was, that was the jury, jury verdict.

Oh, that's the jury verdict. Yeah. So let's back up. Tell everybody what happened. You got in the, they came after you for Medicaid fraud for how much?

Medicare. Medicare.

Oh, Medicare. Medicare fraud.

So I, I, I'm always an innovator. So in 2006, I started the first telemedicine telepsychiatry program in Pennsylvania. Wasn't, wasn't no people. That's radical. The equipment was the size of this room and, and nobody did telehealth. Nobody did telepsychiatry, but I did that. And I connected to rural folks in Pennsylvania who had no psychiatrist to see. And we started this pilot program with a local hospital. And then I decided I wanted to do private practice and I continued with that. So when you—

Which was a great benefit, by the way, because a lot of people, they're in rural areas. I mean, this is a big issue.

Absolutely.

Right. People don't understand. A lot of people don't understand the, one of the big challenges facing our country right now is the limited access To healthcare.

Absolutely.

And the rural markets, rural hospitals are closing down. So this is, and then we're dealing with a lot of mental health issues. They're dealing with job losses. They have a lot of crystal meth, like a lot of, anyway.

Right. So, so, um, I expanded that program, but you know, the, uh, the government, the Department of Justice, the right arm doesn't talk to the left arm and they don't. So in 2017, they started an investigation. They said, Dr. Rafai, your billing patterns are different than your colleagues. Well, sure. I'm the only one who's doing telehealth.

Mm-hmm.

And so they started an investigation and the investigation rolled for about 3 years. Then we gave 'em information. Um, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't respond to us. And then COVID happened and I was on television talking about telehealth. I was on television kind of educating my colleagues about telehealth. And the government needed a scapegoat. So telehealth, telehealth started, telehealth started with nobody doing it. It was 0.002%, and I was that 0.002%.

Mm-hmm.

And then now it's 100%. Everybody's doing telehealth.

Right.

And so the government needed, well, let's find somebody who was doing telehealth and we'll just prosecute them and we'll just teach everybody a lesson about telehealth. to like bill correctly. And, and their argument was that I was seeing patients for 2, 3 minutes and not taking care of them. And I was saying that I was talking to them and doing psychotherapy.

But why? Here's what I don't get in COVID.

Yes.

That was the way that we saw doctors was telehealth.

Yes.

Right. It, you know, all of a sudden they increased the reimbursement rate for telehealth. Um, they, you know, they basically, it actually helped quite a few of our clients because all of a sudden now they were getting more than they were for an in-office visit.

Absolutely.

Um, why in, during COVID would they come after you? I mean, it sounds to me, I mean, this is the wisdom of the government.

The wisdom of the government.

Well, there's an oxymoron.

Yeah. Yeah. And so, so there are, their whole entire case was that, um, Dr. Rafai sees these patients only for 2, 3 minutes and bills for 20 minutes. That was the, the entire case just summed up. And they said, and, um, they said you billed for each visit $43.42, 4 visits that they thought were criminal, $180. And then they extrapolated that to $1.3 million. They said, Dr. Rafai, we want $1.3 million, but it's not gonna be civil. It's criminal. And there was an indictment in November 2022.

Did they come and arrest you?

They, they, because I was in negotiation with them, I was fortunate that they did not come and arrest me because we were in negotiation. They knew my attorney. We were asking, why is this, why is this being pursued? What, what is it that we did wrong? The government never told me what is it that I did wrong until I went to trial. And then we found out that they didn't understand what they were talking about.

Okay. So what goes on inside of you? What goes on inside of a person when the government comes after you and you feel wrongly accused? What's that like inside of you?

It is, it is a very unique feeling that you, you feel that you're, you're being persecuted. I mean, there, there's a, there's difference between somebody who knows that they did something wrong. Mm-hmm. And between somebody who knows that everything that they did Is, um, um, uh, ethical, that they tried their best to comply with the rules and regulations of Medicare, which are incredibly cloudy. Uh, yep. And, and that they documented that.

Hmm.

One of the exhibits that my lawyer showed in trial is emails from me to my staff. I want to ensure compliance with Medicare rules and regulations. In writing, multiple emails. This is one of the reasons why the jury says, well, you know, the government is saying this guy is stealing from Medicare and this is his emails.

Right.

He's telling his staff, we want to ensure compliance and the rules are very murky and changing because telehealth was a moving target at that time.

Well, the rules change all the time.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And they change retroactively.

Yes. That's what people don't— and, and so we, and we asked, well, on what version of the rules? That rule book had 30 versions. Which version of the rule book are you talking about? The government couldn't tell us.

Did you feel like they were singling you out? Did you feel like they were—

I felt some singling out. I mean, I'm Middle Eastern. I'm Muslim. My name, and that they target Middle Eastern people. The other thing is I'm a psychiatrist and I am very vocal. Um, and one of the topics that I talked about was the mental health of, uh, people or politicians and famous people. And that escalated. I, I was in an interview where I talked about the mental health and the, uh, cognitive issues that the current president at that time was experiencing. And, um, that was not very, very, um, a very positive topic. No. And what happened is—

God forbid. You should, like, he doesn't know how to get off the stage. Maybe this should be a concern.

Yes. And what happened is that, um, a new U.S. attorney got appointed and they said, we want to go after this guy.

You know, I have talked with, I've had, I've had quite a few conversations with people that have taken on the federal government. Like, there is a common, probably talked, I've probably, I haven't had them all. I haven't had them on the podcast. I've got one, I've got another one who took on, who was, uh, not the government, but the health insurance company for $2.5 billion, or million, I mean, $2.5 million. Um, there is a common theme with regards to the Department of Justice is that people feel like they were being made an example of. Did you feel that? Absolutely.

Absolutely. I mean, I said, I mean, it was like people, um, they wanted to teach people who were doing telehealth a lesson about what is it that you do Uh, what is it that you're not supposed to do?

Right.

And what is it that, that you basically just, uh, are supposed to, to, um, practice in terms of telehealth documentation? And all of our, our documentation was good, but the, the rules are very fluid and changing. Mm-hmm. And what they wanted us to document, it changed over time. And they didn't, they didn't tell us which version of the rules they wanted our documentation to, um, comply with though. I hired an expert and he was on the stand and he said, whatever version of the rule you choose, his documentation complies with it.

So you decide to take on the government. Why not just do a plea deal?

I mean, to my understanding, there's no plea deal that involves you not admitting to guilt, right?

Because, uh, you know, as a lawyer, if you were looking at this from a pure economic standpoint, yes, it might cost you a quarter of a million dollars, let's say, in legal fees.

Uh, it cost me $1 million.

$1 million in legal fees.

Yes. To defend myself.

To defend a $1.3 million.

Yes.

Okay. So, you know, if I look at this from a pure economic standpoint, maybe the settlement that they're offering is what, $750,000, $500,000?

Mm-hmm.

But yet you have to admit guilt. What would you do?

You have to admit guilt.

And, and what would that look like? How would that change your life?

You become, you become a convicted felon.

Right. So you can't like, you can't vote anymore.

You can't vote anymore. You can't—

So your voice is gone.

Your voice is gone. Your practice is gone. Uh, you wouldn't be able to continue.

You wouldn't be able to continue practicing?

No.

Could you, I mean, would you, would your license get suspended?

Your license would get suspended. You'd have to spend time in jail. They, they were not gonna accept anything where you don't spend time in jail. They consider you a criminal. They—

How much were they saying? How much did they wanna send you away for?

So the press release says that they want, I could spend 40 years in jail if I had gone to trial.

Better off dealing heroin. You'll only get 20.

Yeah. And so, um, I said, no, I did nothing wrong. I want to, I want to go to trial. And my chances at trial were 1 in 1,000.

What was your lawyer did, what did your lawyer say? I mean, and I'm sure he or she wanted the fees, but like, what did they, what was their advice?

My lawyer, my lawyer is a, is a very noble person. I like him, Mr. Paul Hetznecker. I chose him because his father is a psychiatrist and his brother is a psychiatrist. So he knew the psychiatric world very, very well through his family. And he's a very, very active criminal defense attorney, uh, uh, federal as well as state.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, I, I believe in, in, this is every federal criminal defense attorney. They always believe that their client is guilty. They start with that and we start with the premise that they're guilty. The premise there that they're guilty. I mean, there, there's a reason why they believe that there's reason why the government prosecuted this person. They don't, they don't believe that, oh, the government prosecuted this person because of a political issue or because of religious. They always start that their client is guilty and they're, as they develop a rapport and a relationship with the client, and as they go through the evidence, they develop whether there's a defense to the case that the client is experiencing or not. And I believe that he started believing in my innocence when the expert that he hired, not me, he hired an expert and he says, can you look at Dr. Rafai's notes and books and everything? And that expert went through everything. And then he came to the lawyer and said, it's all made up. Dr. Rafai is innocent. That was the expert, not me. Wow. So, so, so when you have an expert How'd that make you feel? I felt vindicated.

I was going to say, yeah.

And I asked my lawyer, well, why can't we just go to the government and tell them? He says, they'll change the strategy. We go to trial. We don't tell them that we know that they, everything is cooked. They cooked the books. That's, that's the, the, the, the, the case.

Does that give you any pause to say that verbally, that they cooked the books? You afraid that they come after you again on something else? I mean, they kept, they keep coming after people once they get somebody in their targets.

They could come after me. I mean, it's, I mean, I, this is the world.

Yeah.

Right. This is the world. But, but the, the, the cooking of the books is on, on, on, in, in a transcript, in a court transcript.

I have a, um, I have a friend of mine who works in one of the law divisions of the federal government and he goes, We know everything about everybody. Absolutely. Yeah. And he goes, most people don't realize the laws they violate on a regular basis. He goes, I'll be very frank, Matt, if we decide to go for somebody—

3 felonies a day, every American. Yes.

3 felonies a day.

That's a book.

Yeah.

That's a book. Yeah. Wow.

I don't know which one's— let's see. I've been up since 5. Hmm.

Um, 3 felonies a day.

3 felonies a day in New York. It might be higher.

Yes. Um, so, um, I mean, I mean, so, so in my, in my trial, we discovered that the, the, the, the start of this trial was actually an audit that the, uh, contractor for the federal government did on my, on my notes.

And on— Did that contractor get a piece of everything that's recollected? I wonder.

They were gonna get, yes. Yeah.

That's how most people don't realize how that works. Yes. Right. There's a, there's a contractor and they, they get paid a bounty for how much they recover from you.

And so, so. One of the, uh, um, uh, employee for the contractor did, did the review, and then that employee left. And this case continued for 5 years after that. 5 years after that employee left. So this, this whole audit happened in 2018, 2017, 2018.

And you got the indictment when?

When? 2022. Okay.

And then you went to trial?

2024.

So this is, see, this is what people don't understand.

This is 6 years later.

This is 6 years of your life.

Absolutely.

Eating away at you.

Absolutely. And always on your mind. Yes. With federal agents after you all the time.

And are you looking over your shoulder all the time?

Absolutely.

Especially as you're Middle Eastern or Muslim? Absolutely.

I would imagine that. They came to my mosque.

Really?

They came to my mosque.

For what?

They just said that they wanted to hand me a civil notification.

Because they want to put you on notice and everybody else in that mosque. Yes.

Yeah. Yes.

It's really disgusting.

It was on video surveillance and they admitted to it.

It's really—

They said, oh, we called your attorney. We couldn't get him on the phone. Oh, we couldn't get— I had 2 attorneys. I was like, 2 attorneys, you can't get them on the phone? How about their staff? Well, they have notice of these things in the Department of Justice. How about emails?

Yeah, you, you're supposed to only deal with the attorney, not— they do that to rattle you.

And how did you know I was in the mosque?

Because they monitor you and surveil you constantly.

Yes.

So did you really feel like every phone conversation was— did you get notice of wiretaps?

Everything.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. They sent—

they sent— How about your wife? Did she get notice of wiretaps?

They sent a, um, they sent an undercover police officer to my office to say, okay, there was this— Dr. Rafai sees a patient for 5 minutes and, and, and bills for a visit that's 20 minutes. So they sent a patient to my office, surveillance, that this is part of the court record. Police officer. To their chagrin, I met with that police officer for 90 minutes.

So, all right, so folks, you understand this. What are you getting paid for an office visit? $48 or something like that?

Yes. Okay.

So you get $48 and, you know, the hospitals are like 7 minutes and if you go over 7 minutes, your RVUs go down, right?

Yes.

Here you are, you're going, screw it. I'm only getting paid $48. So that's effectively that you're getting paid like $20, like $29 an hour, right? Yes. Like, yes, I, I pay my executive assistant more than that.

Yes. So, and, and so, so their argument is like, okay, forget the time. We think he just fabricated the entire medical record. They just, they just come up with something. They just come up, come up with something.

Well, because the burden of proof is not upon the government. The burden of proof is upon you because you are guilty until proven innocent. It's not the other way.

And so, and so, and they lost the video surveillance. The recording was lost.

Of course it was.

And then the police officer got on the stand and said, oh, I think this is what happened, but the, uh, video surveillance was lost. How was it lost? Uh, it was in the cloud. It got lost.

Yeah. Yeah. And if you did that, by the way, yes. If you made it that, they would be all over your ass.

Yes.

It really is. It's mind-boggling. So what, what's going on? All right. So what was this like for you at the home? What was this? You're married?

Yes.

Okay.

My, my wife is a physician also. Okay. Um, she's an OB-GYN. Okay. Wow. Um, and she worked for a local hospital.

Okay. And what was this like for her? What was this like for the two of you?

Very stressful. It was very, very stressful for, for me, for my family, for my parents, for my siblings. The whole family gathered together. I have, I have 3 siblings. They're all physicians. They don't live in Pennsylvania.

Your parents had to be so proud.

2, 2 older, 2 older brothers in Florida and a, and a sister who's in Michigan. My parents live in Michigan. They would come every, every few weeks, come visit me and make sure that we're okay.

Did the feds knock on their doors? Did they try to rattle their cages? Did they come after them?

Um, no, uh, my practice is a solo practice. Okay. So, so nobody was, nobody else was involved. My wife wasn't involved. She's an OB-GYN. Okay. So there's no relationship between OB-GYN and psychiatry. It was just psychiatry. So it was just me.

Okay.

I was, I was the target of their, of their anger and, um, just, um, uh, their, their inability to just understand the rules and regulations.

So the verdict comes out May 9th, right? 2024, after a 6-day trial.

Yes.

How did you feel during that trial? Were you optimistic?

Were you—

didn't know, like what? I mean, I knew in your heart you knew you were innocent.

Yes.

But it had, there had to be a seesaw of emotions going on. Absolutely.

Absolutely. All, all the time. All the time.

How did you feel when you, when they were getting ready to go to Deliberation. Did you feel good about your situation? Did you feel—

My lawyer didn't mince words. He says, they have enough to convict you. They have enough to find you not guilty.

Jesus, my Lord.

Yeah.

He, how is that? Yeah.

And I would imagine, so he even, even, and, and, and it was a slam dunk. The first witness was, was a federal agent. And she but about kind of exonerated me in her testimony. The second witness was actually the coder, the, but she wasn't the one who did the coding. And she came out and just because my lawyer is good and he was supported by a very good expert witness, he cornered her. And she ultimately said, I do not support the government's case or this prosecution. I do, I do not want to put my name on this report.

Really?

This is their own expert that they hired. She came out to the jury, and I think that was the reason why the jury acquitted me, is their own expert says, I do not support this prosecution. I do not support the government's case. I do not want my name on this report. I'm outta here. And did they—

how long did the jury deliberate?

The jury received the case on Wednesday, May 8th, in the afternoon. They received it at around 2:30.

Okay.

They went and deliberated for an hour and they came back and they asked the judge to reread the jury instructions for them, specifically the mens rea, which is the intent.

Okay.

And the judge reread it to them in about 45 minutes. It was now 4:15, 4:30, and they said they wanted to go home. So they deliberated for 1 hour, heard the jury instruction again, and then they came back the next day, May 9th, Thursday in the morning, 9:30. They come in, they deliberate for about 45 minutes, and then the bailiff comes out and says, the jury has a verdict.

How scared are you at this time? I would've been crapping my pants.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You just, you just stand there. You just stand there and you just look at the jury.

They came in. Your parents in the room with you?

My parents in the room, my wife in the room with me. My lawyer is next to me. My staff from the office is with me.

And, um, they ask you to stand, right?

They ask you, they ask me to stand and the jury, the jury is there.

Walk me through that.

And they come in. The jury, uh, foreperson is a lady, so a jury forewoman. She brings in the verdict sheet and she hands it into the judge.

Judge. And how big is the jury? 12? How big is the jury?

12 jurors.

It's 12 jurors.

Okay. 12 jurors. Yeah. And there's, there's 2, 2 alternates.

Alternates.

Alternates with them. So she hands in the, the jury verdict to the, uh, to the, uh, judge.

Are you trying to like make eye contact or read 'em or what are you doing? Are you trying to—

I felt that the jury foreperson made contact with me and she may have smiled. This is, and maybe this is my feeling afterwards. Maybe you heard this side of the story. Maybe I, whatever.

Maybe it's revisionist history.

I don't know. I don't know. But, um, she handed the, the, and, and then the, the judge and, and he says, um, um, do you have a verdict? And they said, not guilty on all charges. Not guilty. Charge 1, charge 2, charge 3, charge 4. What happened?

What happened inside you? Do you remember?

I think I dissociated. I, I, I would imagine I felt, I felt I dissociated and, and went to another— Did you cry?

Did you, did you?

My parents were crying. I, I, I, I was crying inside.

Yeah.

And, and my parents were crying. My, my dad, my dad cried twice in his life and, and this is like, this is the second time that he cried. And, um, um, government says, no, we want, we want to tally the jury. So every juror has to say not guilty for each charge. There were 4 charges.

Mm-hmm.

So I got I got 12 not guilties, and then I got again 48 not guilty. So each juror said not guilty on charge 1, not guilty on charge 2, not guilty on charge 3, not guilty on charge 4.

So clean. You whitewashed 'em.

Yes. 48 not guilty.

48 nothing. Yes. Congratulations. What was— okay, so you disassociate.

Yeah.

Right?

Yes. That day is a blur, right?

But like, okay, so looking back at it, right?

Yes.

I mean, do you go back to that time and just think like, what was I, what really went inside of me? Like, was there this release of just all this negative energy on you? Like from what? And over the next couple of days, what were the next couple of days like?

Remember, remember, I, I was—

Or did you go back to work the next day and see patients?

I was resigned to the idea that I was gonna be found guilty.

Mm-hmm.

In fact, I contracted with a service that is called Mitigation Service, White Collar Support Service. And basically, if you're found guilty, they'll help you mitigate your situation. Mm-hmm. They'll help you get a short sentence. And, um, I said, well, Okay, if I get convicted, where would I go? So they said, the best place for you to go is at the federal correctional facility in Otisville, New York. You're Muslim. They have halal food. They have a lot of Jewish people. They have kosher food. They have a mosque. They have a synagogue. It's perfect.

It's like being in the Middle East. It's just like home.

Just go to Otisville. So I said, well, how far is Otisville? Otisville was 2 hours. So I had to get permission from my pretrial officer. I said, I want to go and just look at Otisville and see, am I comfortable if I get convicted that I'm going to go there? And so I drove on a Sunday. I looked at it from the outside and I said, I'm at peace. I'm at peace with whatever is going to happen.

How much before the, before the jury trial jury or the trial?

This is about 4 weeks before the trial.

4 weeks prior. Yeah.

So I, I was at peace that I was—

Did you surrender the The outcome to God?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

We always, I mean, I surrender everything to God.

Right.

Um, and every day of the, of the week, uh, 24/7, 365, it's all with God. Um, but, um, uh, if God, God says, well, I, I need a witness, right? God, I, I need something. I need faith comes before the miracle.

Right, right. Always. Faith always comes before the miracle. So I was raised Catholic. I, Tell people I'm a follower of Jesus. I don't like to really say I'm a Christian because like that has a lot of weird connotations for people, but my faith is very central to what I do. I used to own Christian Business Daily. So for a number of years, but I'm not as— so obviously I'm very familiar with the writings and teachings of Jesus. Um, walk me through how that, through the lens of a Muslim, walk me, help me understand the tenets of your faith. in times of deep crisis, like you were saying, how you surrender each and every single day to God. Very similar, by the way, to the teachings of Jesus.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

But walk me through that.

I mean, Syria is where Jesus is Syrian, right? Yes. Yeah. So, so we are, we are the land of Jesus Christ. We love him. And, um, uh, it's the same teachings. I mean, it's, we have one God and We basically, like people in Syria, we fast together. The Christians fast, the Muslims fast. We do prayers. I actually went to a Catholic school.

Did you really?

As a Muslim.

What was that like?

Very interesting. Very interesting. And so, so I, I still have a lot of Catholic friends and from Syria.

Were you allowed to pray your 5 times a day?

Yes. Yeah. You're allowed to pray and, and You're allowed to go to church and see how their prayers are. And it was very, very a deep faith community, whether you're Muslim, whether you're Christian, or whether you're Jewish. My hometown, Aleppo, Syria, one of the 2 oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, at one time had the largest Jewish population outside of Israel in the Middle East.

Wow.

Okay. So it had a lot of— Huge Jews. Okay. huge Jewish population. And so, um, my, my grandmother, their neighbors were Jewish. And on Saturday, on their Shabbat, I would go in and turn on their, their stove and turn on their menorah. 'Cause basically they're, they're just, they can't, they can't do that. Yeah. On, on their, on their Sabbath, on, on, on the Shabbat.

I was married to a Jewish woman for a while, so yeah, I got a full, I grew up classic Irish Catholic, like straight outta central casting. I grew up, as I say, I grew up Irish Catholic Democrat in Chicago.

There you go.

I could be anything I wanted as long as I was Irish Catholic and Democrat. Uh, uncle was a cop, dad was a lawyer, brother's a union plumber, another brother's a musician, another brother of mine is, you know, in politics. Like, you know, yes, it's everything.

The typical American.

The only thing we don't have is a fireman, right? Like we're, you know, and you know, I was supposed to be the bar— and a priest. We don't have a priest.

Yes.

Maybe this is my form of, of being a priest. But anyway, yeah, I, um, You know, the thing that I find fascinating, I have friends all, I mean, I'm one of those folks that I don't have a very small network of people. I have a, I'm very much of a chameleon. Like if you were to invite me to come, I don't know if I can come to your mosque, but if you're—

You're welcome to come. Right.

I would be like, great, let's do it. Right. Like, and I would just, 'cause I like to do the experience of it. Like I like to understand. Other people's— I'm fascinated by other people's stories. I'm fascinated by the human condition. I'm fascinated by why things are the way they are, right? And the stories that they are. And what I find more times than not is the basis is the same. Absolutely right. I'm hearing you talk about your faith and every day is a gift and surrender each and every single day.

Absolutely.

It sounds exactly like being in Catholic grade school, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, uh, I have Muslim, I have Muslim friends. I have Mormons. I have a couple Mormons that work for my organization, Latter-day Saints. I have clients all across. And I think that's, I think so much time in the world, what we do is we spend more time trying to find the slivers of the differences versus the overwhelming commonality.

And since you mentioned Mormons, after I finished my trial, I decided that I need to train to speak better, to speak, to tell my story to the world. And so I went to a Speak Like a Pro program that is done by a motivational speaker by the name of Dan Clark. And he's out of Salt Lake City, Utah. And so I trained with him for a full year. I would go to Sabbath school.

Look, they've sold that religion door to door like, like vacuum cleaner salesmen for the last, you know, 150— I give them grief all the time. I'm like, Jews never go door to door.

Yes.

My Jewish friends are like, you're right, because we're not taking any more members. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I, I, I love that. So I have, I have a very soft spot for the Mormons in my heart because of my friend Dan Clark.

Yeah. You know, we just, it's the thing that saddens me about America today. is the ability to disagree politely and to put down our arms. It's like, it's like there's a litmus test every single day. It just drives me crazy.

Um, but we're all humans. We're all, we're all, all, we're all under God. Yeah.

We're all under God.

One nation under God.

It's a pretty hard concept for a lot of people to understand. You know, because they want to say, well, it's supposed to be because for the Christian. I'm like, yeah, but it still extends to all of us.

Yeah.

Which I think makes the human, the American experience so unique because it's the only country where it really is the melting pot, right? You know, uh, you, we don't have 20 centuries of systems and homes and belief systems, right?

Yeah.

We have this place where we all come together and the Muslims end up next door to the Jews and the Catholics and the Christians and the Protestants and the Lutherans and all of it.

Yes.

And we're all together. Um, so let's go back to this day. I want to know more. What was— so the thing that I'm fascinated about, you said you were 400 pounds, right?

Yes. Yes.

So did that weight increase during the investigation?

During the investigation, during the stress of the investigation, during the trial, doing—

Okay. So you're, Highly trained psychiatrist.

Yes.

You understand the human brain. Yes. Were you having, were you, did you have your own psychiatrist that you were talking to?

I ended up having my own counselor and psychiatrist.

I bet you did. So walk me through, because, you know, I think one of the hardest things, like my docs that do PRP, they're like, oh yeah, I injected my own Achilles with PRP.

Right.

And I'm like, why didn't you have like your PA do it? Yeah. I just figured I would do it myself. Were you trying to fix, were you trying to do it yourself or trying to do it myself?

And then figured out that I can't do it myself. And I, I had, I ended up seeing a counselor. a psychiatrist, fellow friend psychiatrist, and he's still my friend. And I saw him for counseling because, because of the trauma that I went through.

So let's talk about that trauma. If you were to go back, let's say you were, let's say you had a doctor, a psychiatrist friend in front of you and you were counseling through this.

Yes.

What goes on inside of when a person, when this happens, explain to me medically what is going on inside of someone that's dealing with this kind of high-level Feeling like you're being crushed, feeling like the weight of the world is on you.

I mean, it's the government of the United States.

The most powerful country on the face of the earth.

The most powerful country on the face of the earth. The Department of Justice of the most powerful country in the world. Even if you're a president of a country, they snatch you from your home, from your bedroom, and you end up there. The weaponization of the Department of Justice.

justice.

So Muhammad Ali, Rafai, little, little— Yeah.

I mean, if they can, if they can arrest the former president of the United States and do a mugshot.

Yes.

Right. What can they do to Muhammad Ali Rafai? Anything they want. Anything they want. Yeah.

But, but God is great.

God is great.

God is great. I mean, so when you, when you latch onto this idea that, that faith comes before the miracle, that God will intervene, God will Part the sea for me.

Oh, and didn't you have days where you didn't feel the sea was gonna get parted?

Didn't you feel like the sea was gonna crash down on you? Absolutely. Yep.

I've been there. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's, it's, it's in, it's in the Quran. It's in the holy scripture is that even the prophets, they thought nothing was gonna happen.

Yeah.

And then God, God came and intervened. I, I, I feel that that was a miracle. One in a thousand chance. Uh, kind of modern-day miracle. That's what I call it.

So you, you medicated the stress with food. Is that safe to say?

With food, prayer, um, anything I could do.

And like, okay, so, so I've medicated over the years with alcohol.

Yes. Rarely drink.

I rarely drink anymore.

I don't drink. I don't use drugs. So food was my comfort.

Food was your comfort?

Yes.

Okay. And how quickly, when you first started this, what was your weight? And what you said, it ballooned to 400. Where did you start?

I started at 250.

Really?

Yeah.

You put on 150 pounds over the span of how long?

Probably 2 years.

Really? Mm-hmm. Holy cow.

Yeah. Yeah. You could see my pictures. It was like a different face. This is not the same person.

Yeah. I've lost 30 pounds. People look at it and they go, I've got a beard now and longer hair. They're like, they look at pictures of me from like 4 years ago. Like, who the hell is that?

Like, that's me.

Yes. This is, this is the real me.

Yes.

This is the real me. Um, what about with your wife? How is she dealing with the stress?

Very stressed out. She's, she's very faithful also. And she's, she's, she carried her faith and she kept the, the, the house going.

Mm-hmm.

She had her patience. I mean, she's, she's an OB-GYN delivering babies every night.

That's a stressful life and lack of sleep. Yeah.

Stressful life on its, and, and my kids. I mean, they, they were just hearing all the news and everything about their father.

How old are the kids?

So my, my oldest is 23 and he's actually here in, uh, New York City. He's, uh, second year dental school at NYU.

Smart. Sent him to dental school.

Yes. No, I don't wanna deal with medicine.

I saw what happened to dad.

Just tell him, leave him in charge, whatever he wants.

I saw what happened to dad. I'm not doing medicine. If you're gonna make money, go be a dentist.

Yeah.

Or an orthodontist. Do those, do one of those 2 things. Um, yeah, I'm just, you know, do you, have you thought about the collateral damage of the impact to the children? Like what has been, what was that? I mean, I'm assuming they'd been through going through some therapy and if, you know, again, anything that you can't dive into.

Yeah, no, no. I mean, it's a, it impacts everybody, right? I mean, it's a, it's, it's a, a wound. That does not go away.

Right. That's kind of where I want to go.

Yes.

Right. So we do a lot of work. We were talking offline and you do work in ketamine, right?

Yes, absolutely.

So let's talk about your psychiatry practice today. Um, and because of Medicare, you've had to Medicaid. I'm sorry, Medicare, Medicaid. I'm sorry.

Medicare.

Medicare.

Yes.

They need to come. They should have had better names.

Yes.

Um, you can't take like 50% of your patient base now is cash.

Yes.

So has that been a blessing for you?

It, it's a kind of blessing, but let me tell you what happened. So this is how the, uh, right side of the government, right arm of the government doesn't know what the left arm is doing. So I was being prosecuted by the Department of Justice and the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services. But I am in rural Pennsylvania. I had a group of about 250, 300 Medicare patients that are severely mentally ill. Nobody wants to take, nobody wants to deal with them.

Mm-hmm.

So what Medicare says is, we love you, Dr. Rafai, but the Department of Justice says that you're, you're, you did fraud. We don't know. We don't think that you did anything wrong, but we're gonna suspend your Medicare privileges. We're not gonna eject you from Medicare. We're just gonna do payment suspension. You're still gonna be in Medicare. We want you—

Which means that you, you can still see patients, but we're not gonna pay you for 5 years.

We're not gonna pay you.

Yeah.

Probably.

We can put it in the bank, no interest, but we're not gonna pay.

Yes. So they actually put it, kept it in escrow.

They kept, did they give you an interest rate on that at all?

No, no interest. Of course not. No interest.

No.

2, 2 years. And so, um, and then, and then when I was found not guilty, I sent them a letter. Within 1 month, they turned it back on. They paid me within one month after the trial.

The check must have been at least a little bit nice.

Very nice. Very nice. Very nice. Very nice.

Very nice direct deposit.

Yes. Very nice check that came in. And, and 'cause I asked for support from, uh, my congressperson, I asked for support from the, from the senator and my patients wrote letters to Medicare. It's like, okay, this doctor, you gotta pay him because he took care of us. And, um, It was the, the government's case was so misguided. They could not find one patient to badmouth me to, to, I mean, like they said, I did $1.3 million of fraud. They couldn't cajole or get, the government couldn't get one patient, one Medicare patient to come to the trial and say, this Dr. Rafai, uh, billed me wrong. Wrong.

Yeah. Did me wrong.

Not one patient.

Was your, were your, was your US representative, your congressperson?

Yes.

Was, was he or she supportive?

Very supportive.

Very supportive. Who's your, who's your congressman?

Um, I, I wrote, I wrote to, uh, Congressman Fetterman. So the, the, the, the Democrat.

Oh, the senator.

Yeah. The senator.

I love, I love him, by the way. I, I, I love him. I mean, I think he's fantastic anyway.

Yeah. And so, and so, uh, he wrote a letter to Medicare and says, can you, can you, uh, release the payment for this, uh, doctor? And just like within one week, boom, they paid me.

Wow.

So they, they, they paid somebody that, that the government said that he's a fraudster and then 12 Pennsylvanians who don't know me. They don't know me from Adam. They just collected them from Pennsylvania. They brought them into this trial. They listened to the evidence for 6 days, and then 12 Pennsylvanians who knew nothing about Medicare says, this guy's not guilty.

Yeah.

You can't— there's no better kind of—

There's no better.

Uh, uh, testimony from the people of Pennsylvania to say that the government just got it all wrong. Yeah.

So I, I, we don't have any psychiatrists as clients yet. Maybe you'll be the first one.

Absolutely.

Um, and I'd love, I would love to because I get questions all the time, pretty consistently. Can we help you? Right. And just tell everybody, like, what do you get paid for from on insurance for a mental health visit with a patient? How much are you getting reimbursed? How long is the visit for?

So the visit is probably is about 20 minutes.

Okay.

But we get paid like $100.

$100 for 20 minutes.

Yeah.

Can you really get very far on 20 minutes in a 20-minute session?

No. So you bring it back, you bring 'em back and—

'Cause you can't stack those 20-minute sessions.

No.

No.

And so, well, you can make it, you can make it longer. You can make it a longer session.

Okay.

And you can bill a higher code, but there's always the chance that the, um, insurance is gonna say, we're gonna downcode your visit. Doesn't matter. Automatically.

Right.

Without even asking you, oh, we don't think, we don't think there was, there was more than 20 minutes done. Okay. This is all we're paying.

Wow.

So you could, you could, you could do a 40 minutes, you could do a 60 minutes and code it that and send it to the insurance. You could say, I want $200 for that 40 minutes. That's equal to 20 minutes plus 20 minutes. And the insurance is gonna say, we don't think 40 minutes happened. We're only gonna pay you for 20 minutes.

And you know, it's funny, you can't get anywhere in 20 minutes. Like I do some talk therapy. I'm doing through some stuff with some family constellation issues.

Yeah.

And it's a 15-minute session and like we, we speak weekly right now.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Sarah Batar, if you're listening, you are wonderful. God bless you for coming into my life. You are a phenomenal therapist. Um, and she—

And this is to my therapist, Dr. Fred Moss. Okay. So you're wonderful too.

Yeah. God bless 'em, right? Dear Lord, God bless 'em. Um, and you know, we're at like 50 minutes. She's like, we gotta go. I'm like, oh my gosh, we just started cracking open the container, right? Like, you know, we actually talked later today.

Yes.

So you really can't, can you get anything down in 20 minutes?

Okay. So what's your— So, so my, my charge for cash, what do you charge? 20 minutes is $200. Okay.

Do you go longer than that? What's your charge for an hour?

Um, uh, the hour, uh, we charge $450.

Okay. And do you get any pushback on that price at all?

No, no. People, the patients, the pa—

'cause the patients can't find a psychiatrist and they can't find one that they like.

They can't find one that they like.

So this is the fascinating thing. I, it's, you're confirming my suspicion. So we deal with a lot of, when we deal with doc, when we work with doctors, one of the things we talk about is price, right? Like my brother, the union plumber makes more than an orthopedic surgeon with the latest 20% reduction in joint replacement surgery is now like $900 for a joint replacement. That includes 60 days, sometimes 90 days of follow-up. When you factor in what they pay their PA, everything, they make about $28 to $32 an hour. Okay. I mean, that's ridiculous. 12 years of training. They get paid the same whether they're fresh outta residency or they've been doing it 35.

And I don't know how, how, I don't know how they survive, how Secretary Kennedy thinks that, that the orthopedic surgeons are gonna continue to, to do joint replacement. They're not. He just, he just had a shoulder replacement himself. Right.

They're not.

No, they call me and he's, he's the Medicare, he, he Medicare paid for his joint replacement.

Yeah. Well, you know, politics makes some strange bedfellows, right? There's always, there's going to be stuff you don't like that comes along with the stuff you do like. So when we talk to them and we say, look, you can charge $5,000 for PRP and they don't, they think, they immediately think, well, my doc, my patients aren't going to pay that. But what was your experience when you raised prices? When you started going cash and you said, look, we don't take your insurance. What did they say? What did your patients say?

Uh, our first, um, encounter with that was actually during, during this, this, uh, trial, um, um, issue. And what happened is that, um, United Behavioral Health, United Healthcare, mm-hmm, actually targeted everybody in mental health. So they placed everybody in mental health in the Northeast, Northeast of United States.

Mm-hmm.

On something called prepayment review, meaning you have to send in your note before they pay you. Not just, so it wasn't just Dr. Rafai. So actually that was an avenue for me to say, okay, that's it. Goodbye. Goodbye, United. And a year and a half later, actually our local hospital, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Jefferson Health.

Mm-hmm.

Severed ties with, with United.

Wow.

So, so like a huge hospital, 30 hospitals, Jefferson Health severed, severed, uh, ties with United.

Wow. Yeah.

So, so, um, a lot of my patients, um, heard about it and I said, if you wanna continue to see me, that's my, my fee. And, uh, basically they tried to find other psychiatrists and they couldn't find them.

They couldn't come back. Yeah.

So they just decide to stay with me.

Yeah. Um, now you do ketamine.

And I do ketamine too.

Okay. Um, let's, I'm a big fan of plant medicine. I've done somewhere in the neighborhood of probably 50 journeys.

Yes.

Over the last 2+ years.

Yes.

Uh, quite a few of our staff, a lot of our doctors, 45+ of our doctors have gone, uh, dealing with trauma.

And I did, I did psychedelic training because at that time, um, We were preparing for psilocybin to be approved.

So are you a fan?

I'm a fan. Yeah. So we were preparing for psilocybin to be approved for PTSD.

What?

And it wasn't approved by the, by the FDA.

Yeah. Yeah. And then they're going through again.

So MAP, MAP, I was part of MAP.

Oh, you were part of MAP? Okay.

Yes.

I trained with them.

I trained with them. I have a certificate that I'm a psychedelic therapist that I, I could, I could take people through journeys and, um, the FDA didn't approve.

So what, so why are you a fan of plant medicine, psychedelics? Um, and then the MAP protocol, are you using the MAP protocol that's like using MDMA in addition to psilocybin or what's kind of your, walk me through kind of, this is a big broad topic. So I'm gonna dive in.

So we did, we did, uh, basically I, I'm a believer in different medications that work on different neurotransmitters. Okay. So, so ketamine. So ketamine, um, I was part of the group at the National Institute of Mental Health where we actually worked on ketamine. Mm-hmm. This was 2004 after I finished my residency at University of Virginia in internal medicine and psychiatry. I went to the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda. I was at NIH. People hear about Dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci's office was across the street from our, from our, from our office.

Okay.

So we, I was there in that, in that community and I did research for about 3 years and one of the research protocols that I was involved in was ketamine. And basically we gave intravenous ketamine to people with treatment-resistant depression.

Okay. So treatment-resistant depression.

Yes. Okay. Yep.

Or, and, and, and so is treatment, is treatment with the use of SSRIs and talk therapy, or is it just everything? It's everything. So it's a big umbrella.

Yes.

It's all of it.

Okay. Yes. All right. So people who, who've tried the whole system and they didn't respond to anything. Okay. You give 'em ketamine. Okay. Intravenous ketamine.

And what did you witness? With, with the use of ketamine?

Robust response. Is it within a few days? Is it within a few days?

Longstanding?

Yes. Within a few days, people who've been depressed for 20 years, their depression lifted. Okay. Their scores improved.

And did it stick? Like, so I've read some, I won't say studies, just some of the papers I should say, or articles that ketamine doesn't have as long a shelf life that you have to keep doing it.

So maintenance with all, there's a maintenance as with all medications. Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

All right. Okay.

So, so then is there, is there like, is there a model? One of the pharmaceutical companies developed a nasal spray. So ketamine is, as a compound, it has 2 isomers.

Mm-hmm.

Entomers, um, esketamine and, uh, um, another, another type. So they, they developed esketamine.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, uh, they made it as a nasal spray. So left side and a right side. Okay. And they developed, um, a nasal spray.

So you prefer, which do you prefer to use? What modality do you prefer?

Do you prefer nasal spray? So what, in my office, in my office we use intramuscular ketamine.

Intramuscular. Yes. Okay.

So that's what I— It's the easiest way. It's, it's the kind of more robust way. And we found that it was really not a lot of difference between intramuscular ketamine and intravenous ketamine.

Okay. And how long is that session?

So the session is about 2 hours. Okay. So they come into my office. I have, I have A monitor. They, they sit in a, in a dark room, something like this, and then they, they basically relax and then, and then they're connected to a monitor and they sit on a, on a couch or recliner and they get monitored and then they receive an intramuscular shot of ketamine. They dissociate for about 45 minutes. They get monitored for another 45 minutes and then their loved one drives 'em home.

Any, and then in that 45 minutes where they're coming out of it, is there talk therapy going on with that or what do you do?

There, there, there's, there's talk therapy. They listen to music. Sometimes they, they're seeing some imagery. Um, I have them do homework prior to the session.

Mm-hmm.

And I have them do homework afterwards. Okay. Yes.

Great.

So there's some integration. And I find, and I find that kind of being involved inside the session is not very productive. Okay. So I have them do homework before and I have them do homework after, and the dissociation is there on their own.

Okay, great. Um, then I know that it's not legal in the state of Pennsylvania. It's legal in other states, right? The psychedelics, the use of psilocybin. Yeah, they're, they're, they're not legal. Yes. Right. Um, what would be your model? What would be a protocol that you would, how do you, where would you use it? Like where would you divide, where would you decide, okay, this person needs ketamine or—

So MAPS psilocybin protocol was actually for post-traumatic stress disorder was a whole day protocol.

And how much do you take? How much of the, is the patient taking in the, in the, of the psilocybin? If it's a whole day protocol, are they taking like 5 grams?

So just one. Yeah. No, no, just one dose.

Just one gram?

One, one dose.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

All right.

Yeah. So this was just one, one dose that, uh, that they developed through the FDA.

Okay.

And, um, basically, um, and then they, they basically, they're, they, they have a session for the whole day and they're monitored and they have to have 2 therapists, not just one.

Right. Yeah.

'Cause so, so part of my preparation was that I was preparing space. We needed couches, we needed a room like this. Mm-hmm. We needed 2 therapists. It needs to be a, a, a safe space for the person.

Mm-hmm.

Um, you have to hook 'em to a monitor and where can you find 2 therapists who are willing to devote a whole day for 1 patient?

Right. And what would you charge for something like that?

And that was, that was, uh, we didn't know.

Yeah.

We, I mean, that was the ob— one of the obstacles. And, um, one of the reasons why the FDA refused to approve that protocol is because they couldn't kind of dissect what was the medication, what was the therapy.

Mm-hmm.

So they had, they had a whole psychedelic-associated, um, psychotherapy, so they couldn't dissect which one was the effective. Was it the therapy or was it the medication?

It's interesting because I, like I said, I've done my first session. I speak about it all the time on the podcast. I'm a big fan. Uh, November 22nd, 2024 was about a 4.5 to 5 hour session. Did about 200 milligrams of Molly, MDMA, and then I think a gram to a gram and a Happened of psilocybin, right? In the form of a chocolate. It was by far one of the most transformative moments of my life. More transformative than watching my daughter be born.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, it was like every, everything was made abundantly clear to me. It's changed the way that I've run my company and I've done numerous, you know, I've done, uh, more sessions. I've done, um, I've done some self-guided stuff. Like, this probably is like making your skin crawl, but, um, you know, 'cause I'm doing it self-guided, but I'm, I'm very much of an experimentalist. Like, once I go into something, like, well, let's, let's try this, right?

Absolutely.

And it has been, it has completely changed me. Um, if you were to have met me 2 years ago, I'm a vastly different person. Like, I show people pictures of me from 2 years ago. They're like, that's you? I mean, just like The way my energy portrays and all of it. And the thing that, the thing that it's, and I've done talk therapy for a long time, it's helped me understand the depth of the trauma of what I grew up in. And it's helped me understand the depth of the generations of the trauma. Um, it's been, been life-saving.

Mm-hmm.

I'm, I mean, to say that I'm a fan is probably an understatement. And like you said, you have to be, you have to create a very safe container.

Yes, absolutely. Right.

Because you know that when you're on that dose of MDMA and then you have the psilocybin, you know, you have to be very careful. Absolutely.

Right.

Is that, is that a big concern for you? Absolutely. Yeah.

So yeah. Is, is this person going to become unhinged and run out the street and get run over by a car or—

Or fall in love with me, or, or then am I— yeah. Or am I going to take advantage of it as the—

One of, one of the concerns about one of the sites during the trial was that a therapist and his wife became romantically involved with one of the patients. And so it's always a concern. I mean, they're humans, the therapists are humans, and then the patient is human. And That, that, that there was that, and it wasn't, it wasn't real. There was an insinuation that they got involved. It wasn't, didn't even happen, but somebody just insinuated and, and so they had to basically get rid of the data from that site. Yeah. Completely.

Yeah.

That's it.

Do you have hope? Like what's your, what would be, is this something that you are championing that you want it to be?

Absolutely. So a lot, a lot of the pharmaceutical companies are believing that it, that it's real, that it's true, that it's happening. But they're not focusing on the psychotherapy part. They want it to be a pill. You take a pill and you got better. Basically, that's the American pharmaceutical model. Yeah.

And they're trying to figure out a way to monetize it. Okay.

Here you go. Here you go. You take a pill and your trauma just gets, gets sucked into the ether. Yeah.

Well, yeah, that's, yeah, that's so, I'm not a fan of that. Let's, you know, I've always been wondering like if they're against it because they can't necessarily monetize it.

They're monetizing it now.

They are.

All, all of the, all of the big pharmaceutical companies are on board. With psychedelics, with, with different forms of psychedelics. The different psychedelics, the different categories. There's somebody that has active protocols that are very close to FDA approval in the next year or two.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're gonna have, you're gonna have compounds coming in in the next year or two that are gonna be, and they're on fast track 'cause the current administration is very supportive of it.

Yeah, they are very supportive.

Health and Human Services is very supportive of it. And so it's on fast track with the FDA. And they want something like in the next, like pronto, like in the next year or two.

You know, part of me is like, I really don't want the pharmaceutical companies involved because I don't know, the monetization and the weaponization of those things always kind of scare me. There's some, there's some things like, like, you know, obviously a big fan of peptides, right? I'm on hormone replacement therapy. I use peptides. You know, I kind of like having the compounding pharmacies that are not, that are able to do these things and have a little bit, you know, it's not so big money oriented, right?

Yes.

Um, so that gives me a little bit of pause, but you know, I mean, look, if the mental health of our country can dramatically improve, I think so.

Yeah.

So will you be first in line if it's all approved of doing it? Will you offer?

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I'll support it.

What's your feeling on ibogaine? And say ayahuasca. I know that former Governor Rick Perry out of Texas is pushing the initiative on ibogaine.

Yes.

They got about $150 million.

I mean, so, so there's, there's like several categories of psychedelics that are, that are available and they work in different mechanisms. And there, I think there's going to be some compound in each of the categories that won't, or compound or 2, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA.

Mm-hmm.

Ibogaine. So there's gonna be a lot and they may come up with, with a ketamine, a pill form ketamine. Interesting. And they may come up with an injectable approved ketamine for depression. So there's, there's like, there's gonna be multiple compounds that are gonna become available in the next year or 2. I believe.

I'm not an overly big fan of the SSRIs. I don't It really feels like it masks the symptoms. What are your feelings?

I think that they've just, we've done that phase. We've been, the first SSRIs have been around for 35 years maybe now, almost more than 35 years. And they've helped some people and they haven't helped some people. So they only help about 20, 20, 25% of our patients.

It seems like they're, uh, Christine, my girlfriend, she's significantly younger than I am. She's 30. It seems like everyone in her generation is on it. It's fascinating to me.

Yes.

Like, oh yeah, I know I've been on Lexapro. I'm on Wellbutrin. I'm like, yes. For, for what?

Yes. Because they want to mask, mask their emotions and their feelings.

But yet they try to be so in touch with their feelings.

Isn't it interesting, Guy Cottomayor? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, so let's talk about your books here. Yes. Let's talk about, let's, this is book 2 of 3. Yeah.

So this is the first one that came out. So Dr. Not Guilty. Dr. Not Guilty came out. I wrote it because I wanted people to hear the story.

So this is the story of your entire journey with regards to the case and everything.

Prosecution. Yeah.

Prosecution.

Yeah. So it starts with trauma. So, so the opening scene is my, um, dad who was 7 and witnessed his dad My grandfather die as he was on a podium reciting a poem for the independence of Syria, 1947.

Was he assassinated or did he just die?

No, he just had a heart attack. He was so emotional about the, the, the—

Really? How old was your father when that happened? He was 7.

He was 7 and he watched his dad who was on the podium reciting a poem and became so emotional, had a heart attack and died.

Um, so yeah, I lost my father when I was 13. Heart condition, sitting next to him watching a baseball game at home. Messes with you. Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. Is that, is that part of the reason why you went into psychiatry?

Yes. Part, part of the family trauma.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

How, how, how much does family trauma dictate today's life for, for the average American, for the average human? How much does that dictate A lot.

So, so we used to think, the research used to think that, um, trauma didn't affect us. It affects us even to the DNA level.

Yeah. So talk about that.

So people, people who have trauma, they have something called telomeric shortening.

Mm-hmm.

Telomeres are basically the caps on the chromosomes that kind of protects the chromosomes. Mm-hmm. And what happened is, uh, when we have trauma, We found out that the telomeres get shortened. You know, like you have your pen, there's a cap on the pen.

Yep.

That cap gets shorter and shorter. And so what happened with the chromosomes is when the cap gets shorter, some of the chromosomes, some of the genes starts getting expressed. They're not supposed to be expressed because they're supposed to be capped and protected.

Mm-hmm.

Now you're uncapping 'em and some of these genes, cancer. Inflammation. All these genes that are supposed to be capped are now being exposed with telomeric shortening. That's what we're having.

So what does that, have you read the book It Didn't Start With You by Dr. Wolynn?

Yes. Okay. Yes.

What's your feeling on, do you remember, I don't know how much you remember of it, but what's your feeling of like that, you know, he talks about the generational trauma and like things repeating themselves at like the same age and same stage of lives.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I always, so my grandfather. He was on, on the stage. He was 60. So I'm 53. I'm asking, I'm wondering at age 60, am I gonna have a heart attack and just pass? No. My dad, uh, God bless him, he's 86.

Okay.

So he survived that. He passed that.

He survived that window.

So I am saying, is this gonna skip one generation? Is it gonna hit me now? I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be, I'm 53. Is it gonna be 60? And my grandfather was overweight and he smoked and, and, Ordinarily, it was 1947. People didn't take care of themselves.

Yeah.

And, um, I wonder, so I'm, I'm trying for that not to happen.

So we do a lot of work in this. So we have a program, it's called the Stairway System. It's how you grow your practice. It's how I grew my cash practices.

Yes.

I owned erectile dysfunction clinics starting in 2014.

Yes.

We grew that from zero, from startup to 3 locations in 18 months doing $6.5 million a year. And so the system is the Stairway System. system, right? So it's 5 steps. You've got beachhead, you know, uh, educate and excite, convert, monthly recurring revenue, have a top 10 point more percent offer. So I put as the foundation of that culture, values, vision, all of that. But then one day I'm reading this book by Wholen and I'm realizing, holy shit, I've got a lot of stuff that repeats in the family over and over again.

Mm-hmm.

Now, my, we didn't talk a lot about my family.

Mm-hmm.

There wasn't a whole lot of data. My father dropped dead when he was 60 and I was 13. I find out that his mother died when he was 12.

Okay.

My mother lost her father at 2 months old. My father lost his mother at 12 months old. And before that, she was under quarantine because she had tuberculosis, so he couldn't go in the room. So we have this double trauma stream that flows down into the family, right? And I'm looking at all of this and I realize most of the males in my family are alcoholics on both sides, except with the exception of myself and my father.

Mm-hmm.

Right? And so I start studying this and I realize what sits underneath all of this. And I've been coaching people for 20-plus years. Why is it that I can take 2 people who start the program at the exact same time? Okay. And they have very similar businesses. They go through the same coaching tracks. We take them through the same modules. Why is it that one, this person over here all of a sudden adds $1 million to their practice in a year and this person over here, nothing changed? And as I dive into it and I go, oh, it's their origin code. It's their epigenetics. It's their family history. It's all of these things that create these anchors. I call it like you're, it's like you've got a bungee cord wrapped around your waist and you're tied to a rack in a room and you're trying to run to the other rack. And it's been, it's been a massive revelation for us and our clients because instead of saying, try harder on this thing or work a little bit harder on your marketing or do a little bit better on this. We now, or the reason why you're not getting employees is because we're the right employees is, you know, you need to create a better culture. What we're realizing is people are operating out of all of their holes in their woundedness. And that when we start to do that with our doctors, we watch transformations like this. Like I have a doctor here in the Northeast area. She's got 5 locations. She went and did her sessions and she's like a completely different person in her business because she's confronted that. It's been one of the most fascinating parts of my life's work is seeing that. And I find it just mind-blowing. Like, I think of all the years of the time that I spent talking about the other things. It's not the tactics. It's, well, it's not the tactics. I'll say it this way. It's the telomeres, like the shortening the telomeres.

Yes.

What do you see with your clients when you start to really dive into some of these things in their past and they're able to confront it or understand it, what do you see?

Transformation.

I mean, talk about that. Like what kind of, I know you can't talk about a particular patient, but, um, I mean, we can talk, I can talk about outcomes. Yeah. Let's talk about outcomes.

People, people just change. I mean, people, I have, in what ways?

In what ways do you see?

I have patients who just are able to, um, excel in life. Mm-hmm. I mean, they, they, they were stuck in things and then they excel in life and, um, I'm just, one client comes to mind that when we talked about his trauma, about the way his parents raised him and about how he was dealing with his son, and he's in the mental health profession too, and he excelled, excelled significantly. He started a side business and he has a better relationship with his son.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, he got promoted in his job and he's doing much, much better. Mm-hmm. So when we address these things, outcomes, people, people's lives improve, their relationship with their children, their relationship with their spouse all improve.

I liken it to you're running a, you have a program running in the background on your computer that you don't even know is in there.

Mm-hmm.

And it's dictating everything that goes on in the computer.

Slowing down everything.

Slowing down everything.

Yes. Yeah.

It's like a frozen—

Clogging down everything.

Yeah. It's like a virus, you know, It really is. Um, I think I'm, I think for me, I'm almost 59. I think this season that we're going into, I know for a fact that that type of work is going to become more and more important to our clients' growth than anything else that I, than the frameworks I create. Yeah. All of those things are great. But when you realize that people are hiring out of their woundedness, So that they, that they had a situation where they were a kid growing up and they had to, at the young age of like 15, because a parent died, that they had to take over the family. And that made them have a sense of like strength or whatever. And they still do that in their business today because they hire people that can't really run the business the way they want it to. So they always have to be there. It's fascinating for me to see how those patterns replay themselves. And the more I dive into it, it's, it's like I see more.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So let me tell you, let me tell you about something also innovative that I've been involved in.

Sure. Love to.

So, um, while I was dealing with all of this investigations, uh, one of my, um, one of my, um, things is I'm, I'm a geek in science. There was this new modality.

Mm-hmm.

That looks at brain activity in real time. Okay. And you know, the, our brains are fed to, to, 2 things feed our brains, glucose.

Okay.

And oxygen. All right. All right. That's, that's the fuel of our brains is oxygen and glucose. Now there's other things, nutrients and proteins and, and, but, but mainly it's glucose and oxygen.

Okay.

That's what our brain needs to, to function. So, um, there's a guy by the name of Dr. Amen, Daniel Amen, who's a psychiatrist, very famous psychiatrist. And he developed this modality where he actually looks at the brain in real time. He injects radioactive glucose into somebody and then does a SPECT scan of their brain. Mm-hmm. And that looks at the brain activity in real time. Mm-hmm. And looks at your cognition. A company in South Korea developed an advanced system to look at the oxygenation of the brain. You know, pulse oximetry, the thing that fits on your finger.

Yep.

They developed something that looks at the frontal lobe.

Mm-hmm.

And I started getting involved with them in 2017, 2018, and they developed this machine. And so in 2020, with the beginning of COVID I connected with a longevity guru by the name of Bryan Johnson.

Mm-hmm. I don't know if you know Bryan. Yeah, I know Bryan. I know Bryan. I don't know him personally, but yeah.

Yes. And, um, he had just developed and sold Venmo.

Yeah.

Yes. So, so he was, he was one of the people who, who, who, uh, developed—

He does some wild stuff. He goes out there.

And so, and so I talked to him about this and he says, I'm gonna start a company. We're gonna develop this. We're gonna read the entire brain. So he developed through 2020 to 2022, he developed a machine and he called it Kernel. And it's a helmet that fits on the head and reads the oxygenation of the entire brain.

Hmm.

And developed a model where it actually looks at your brain age versus your chronological age.

Okay.

And, uh, basically you scan your brain and then you get a, a brain age.

Mm-hmm.

And you compare that with your chronological age. Is your brain older than how you are? How, how much, how old you are? Or are, is it younger? Is it, if it's younger, it's wonderful. If it's older, We need to figure out why is it, why is your brain older?

Mm-hmm.

And that's, we, we work on longevity, inflammation, see if we can improve your brain score.

And you're, are you using this, this tool in my, in your practice?

In my practice? Yes. I'm one of 10 centers around the United States that has the Kernel.

I would love, I might have to make a trip back out east.

You are, you are welcome to come.

I would love to do that.

We can do a scan. We can do a scan for you. We can film it. Um, you can go to my website, kernelhelmet.com.

Kernel Helmet. Yes.

K-E-R-N-E-L. Colonel Helmet, H-E-L-M-E-T, colonelhelmet.com. And you can see testimonials. I've scanned a psychiatrist, I've scanned a therapist, I've scanned—

So what do you do to improve the oxygen? What do you, what, and the glucose? What are some of the things that you can do to help improve that?

Um, um, oxygen, uh, just oxidation, oxidation, gut microbiome. You look at their, at their just entire health. You do a whole Uh, panel of laboratory testing. Mm-hmm. And then, and then you just, you just work through that and see why is their brain age, uh, um, more than their chronological age.

Are you familiar with Dr. Frank Shallenberger out of Carson City slash Reno, Nevada? He's kind of the godfather of ozone therapy.

Okay.

He's a, um, he just was on the podcast. It just was in Reno. We just interviewed him. We just dropped it like last week.

Yes.

Frank's been in this space for like 50 years. He's 80 years old now.

Yes.

Looks great. Um, sharp as a tack still. Uh, and he's a client, like he's, we've worked with him for years, um, to transform his practice. He's, you know, he holds a conference on ozone therapy for healing, like for, you know, he helps with healing joints and like, you know, uh, increase, you know, reducing cellular age, all of those things. So just to know if you had ever heard of him or check him out, he's, Frank's brilliant. He's fantastic.

So, so my goal is to scan a million brains.

Really?

Yes. That's my goal.

And so, and that will lead 'em into, will you lead that into kind of like functional or will you lead that into talk therapy or combination, combination thereof?

So there's, there's multiple things that I can do to improve your brain.

Mm-hmm.

Um, we can improve the, uh, chemistry of your, uh, of your body. Okay. Um, um, oxidative stress, uh, inflammation, uh, microbiome. Mm-hmm. We can look at your, G— uh, DNA. We can look at methylation now. We have to like looking at methylation.

So you gotta check out Frank. He's got great tools on methylation. Go, go look up Frank Shallenberger.

And then, um, I have an FDA-approved machine that actually stimulates the brain. So transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Oh, you've got, you have to talk to Frank.

Yes.

You guys are like 2 peas in a pod.

Yes. Yes. So I do, I do TMS. I've been active with TMS for the last 10 years. Mm-hmm. It's FDA-approved for depression, but now there are protocols that it's FDA-approved also for cognitive enhancement.

It would be fascinating to— my business brain's going off right now.

Yeah.

So it would be fascinating to take your model and build a customer journey centered around, uh, talk therapy, the use of functional medicine, and create an entire actual program and wearables.

We didn't talk about wearables. We didn't talk about the other monitoring.

Oh, I can see, like, by the way, I can see the whole new business model in my head. So this is how I operate, right?

Like I, Pieces start spinning around. And I, I just connected yesterday. This is why I took time off from my day to come talk to you. Yeah. Because I just connected yesterday with a company in England and they have a, a software, just an interface that connects the Kernel helmet with wearables, with their oxidative stress, with scales. With, uh, uh, my, with, with, with your, um, iPhone.

Yeah.

Everything all in one platform that will give you everything. ConnectiCom is the name of the company.

So is the Kernel something that is, would be an eventually an at-home tool or is it only in office?

It's only in office.

It's only in office because it's kind of expensive.

Yes. Okay.

Yeah.

And the machine is, is about, about $200,000. Yeah. Okay.

I was gonna say, I didn't think it was a, um, and how often do you have people come in?

To do this every 3 months.

Every 3 months.

Yes. Yes.

So you'd get a baseline, you got a baseline, and then you put 'em in a protocol.

Yes.

With regards to functional health and all that.

And then you bring 'em back in 3 months and see what happens to the brain.

Ooh, baby. Okay. Interesting. My brain is, my, my business brain is clicking off.

And, and what, what you do is you see, you see how their brain is and then, and then you look, you would have already looked at their microbiome. You had looked at their oxidative stress at the blood work. Uh, methylation. Mm-hmm. Um, um, and then, and then you actually see if maybe you can do transcranial magnetic stimulation to enhance their brain.

Mm-hmm.

And I deal with leaders under pressure, executives.

Yep.

So the other metric is, is my company doing well?

Mm-hmm.

Are we having more money? Are we having more revenue?

Uh-huh.

Are we, so, so the metric is not just, okay, is my health better? Is my colonel saying, It's like, no, the other metric is, are you performing better at work?

Right. And now is it, how's that relating back?

Yeah. Yes. And so, and so a, a big part of it also, I'm gonna throw that in the mix because I have a book that's coming.

I want to put it— Is it book 3 of 3? Is that the third part of the book?

No, no, it's actually book 4. Okay. 3 of 3 is coming out.

Wait a minute. It says 3. You're gonna, now you're gonna do 4 of 3? Is that, no.

No. So there's a fourth book. The third book actually talks about my work that I did, um, when I was at NIH working on hepatitis C. And hepatitis C is a disease that in my lifetime, we've killed it. We've just, it's gone.

But it's normally transmitted through needles and things like that.

Through needles and blood. Yes.

Right. Needles and blood.

So now we have treatment. You take a pill for 8 weeks and hepatitis C is gone forever.

Forever.

Doesn't come back. In my lifetime, we discovered hepatitis C in 1991. In my lifetime, we killed a disease. So the title of the book is called Killing the Disease.

Oh, I love it.

That's great. And it's coming out in the next couple months. Okay. So that's book 3 of 3. And then in January, my book, The Humanity Algorithm, is coming out about how people are responding to artificial intelligence.

Really? So what's— dive into that a little bit more. What's the premise of that? When you're pumping out some serious books, do you sleep at all?

Uh, well, I mean, like, go to You know, uh, I don't know if you know the movie Forrest Gump. Yes. What happened to Forrest Gump when he started running?

Yep.

He just kept on running. And so I started with—

You're one of these guys that has a never-ending well of energy.

So I started with Dr. Not Guilty and, and that was my first book after the trial. And I said, I'm gonna keep writing.

How long did it take you to write that one?

This one took about, uh, a couple of months.

Yeah.

After the trial.

I can do a book in about 8 weeks.

Yeah. Yeah. A couple of months.

Once I get it, once— no, it takes like, I, they, they have to percolate a little bit. And so we've got another book. The Origin Code is gonna be the next one, which is gonna talk about the impact of epigenetics and family history and The Body Keeps the Score and its impact on your ability to grow up. It's gonna be targeted for entrepreneurs and founders as to why those are the anchors.

So the Humanity Algorithm is basically, I'm talking about what is artificial intelligence doing to us humans?

And what is it doing to us?

We don't know yet.

I'm worried about getting rid of critical thought.

I'm, I'm, I'm gonna be talking about that specifically. So I wrote Um, I wrote about 12 essays that are being published through Forbes Business Council, specifically talking to executives and entrepreneurs. What is AI doing to us as humans? And I started it, the first, um, um, iteration, the first one was The Mirror We Built is the title of the— Okay.

So yeah, it's the ultimate mirror. Like it's the ultimate echo chamber.

Yes.

So it was adapted by artificial We'll, we'll have doctors be like, oh, I ran it through AI and it says I shouldn't do that for my marketing. I'm like, I've got 25 years of marketing experience.

Like, you know, AI may not be—

AI, man, it's not pumping my brain in there.

Yes. Yes.

But on the flip side, I have like an entire, I have all 500 of my, like, I've got 500 quote unquote hour-long teaching classes that I've recorded. Like, and I've got this massive, like our voice, the voice of our, the stuff that we can create now. Is pretty impressive, but it's taken a long, long, long time.

So, so now that we are talking about AI, I'm gonna bring you back to Dr. Nagelty, to my case. Oh, okay. One of, one of the evidence that the government presented in the trial, the early days of AI, 2018. Mm-hmm. So they have an artificial intelligence, very primitive bot, and there was somebody says that I sent a bill on a patient who was deceased. was dead. So they asked this AI to go through the list of all my patients and see, did I send any bills on deceased patients? And, and AI brought them back 30 names. They didn't investigate it.

They didn't investigate if they, if this was right. They just believed it.

They just, just believed it and ran with it. And at trial, the name number 1 is for a Medicare beneficiary who died in 1968. I was born in 1973. AI hallucinated a name just because they told it, find people who died who were Medicare beneficiaries that we think Dr. Rafai billed on.

Oh, so that patient wasn't, they weren't even never a patient of you?

Never a patient of me.

Never, no record, nothing.

Nothing. 19— they died in 1968. I wouldn't even, I'm born in 1973. I wouldn't even AI just hallucinated names.

Wow.

And we showed that at trial and one of the, I mean, the agents just, their face turned red.

I wonder why they didn't even check it then. All right. What's Hijacked Minds about?

Hijacked Minds is about addiction. Is about—

Really?

Yes. Yes. Hijacked Minds, how addiction rewires the soul. Really?

It's the subtitle.

Yes. Okay.

That's fascinating. Oh, I see it.

Okay.

How addiction rewires the soul. Fantastic. And addiction isn't just drugs and alcohol, it's food and sex. It can be anything, right?

I talk about my food addiction in the book. I talk about my story. Um, I talk about, um, um, I was on the, um, uh, plane at one time in, I forgot exactly the date, 2004 with, uh, Senator Kennedy. Ted Kennedy. I was on the, on the, on the plane with him, and I talk about my encounter with him. Um, uh, and I talk about the Kennedy story.

Yep.

I talk about the story of the Trumps and how they have addiction and alcoholism in the family and how one brother died from alcoholism and there's another brother who's never drank and is not dealing with any issues with addiction.

Right.

Uh, so, so you could, you could have that truly. Yeah.

Yeah. Fascinating. Can't wait to read it. Um, if people want to get copies of these books, how do they get in touch? How do they get in touch with you? How do they get it?

Uh, the books are on Amazon, but they can go to my website.

Okay.

drrefaibooks.com.

And you spell refai, spell that for me.

That's D-R-R-I-F-A-I books, B-O-O-K-S.com. drrefaibooks.com. And the books are available on Amazon and Barnes Noble.

Great. Dr. Rafai, thank you for coming in.

My pleasure.

You are a true maverick, a true man who's looking at the system and going, maybe there's a better way. Maybe the system that's in place isn't really serving us the best. And I appreciate you coming in all the way from Pennsylvania. I'm in New York City at this time. Christine and I happen to be in Manhattan this week.

My pleasure. It was worth it. It was totally worth it.

Yeah, man, it's totally worth it. And I can't wait to talk to you more.

Absolutely.

All right. Thank you so much for coming on. My pleasure.

My pleasure. Thank you.

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