Welcome and Why NPA Was Created
Lia Mix: I’m pleased to welcome Britt Rollins, co-founder of the National Psychedelics Association (NPA). Britt brings more than 20 years of experience in marketing, philanthropy, and healthcare-focused social impact, and he has applied that experience pragmatically to one of the field’s most pressing problems.
Under his leadership, the NPA has grown a committed national member base representing practitioners and centers operating in emerging state therapeutic markets. Most recently, the organization took a major step forward by launching professional malpractice and general liability insurance, a move that signals not just growth, but the maturation of the field.
As a side note, I remember the first time I met Britt Rollins. It was on a street corner in Aspen, Colorado, during the Aspen Psychedelic Symposium. Within 90 seconds, I realized I was speaking with someone deeply serious about addressing the infrastructure and structural needs essential to growing this field with integrity and in a way that meets existing systems where they are. That focus has long been central to my work and Delphi’s, so meeting Britt brought a real sense of relief.
We’re in a moment worth celebrating today. These achievements have required years of work. What I appreciate about Britt’s approach is that it focuses on essential infrastructure. It creates consumer protection, risk mitigation, and transparency, and it helps practitioners participate in this field without jeopardizing their livelihoods. He does that through a community-based approach.
Today, we’re going to talk about the “why” behind the NPA, what this insurance milestone means for state programs and practitioners, and what it could unlock for the future of psychedelic-assisted care in the United States. Britt, I’m glad you’re here.
Britt Rollins: Thank you, Lia. I’m very excited to be here.
Lia: I’d like to start at the beginning. Can you go back to the NPA’s inception? Why was an association needed, and what problems were you and your co-founders trying to solve?
Britt: That question has stayed with the team since our inception. From the beginning, we looked at this emerging field of psychedelic-assisted care and asked: how do we lower the cost of providing that care so that many more people can afford its benefits?
At a systems level, we understood that these substances are Schedule I under federal law [a federal drug classification for substances deemed to have high abuse potential and no accepted medical use], and that this was a new industry built around experiential medicine [care centered on the lived therapeutic experience rather than a conventional daily medication model]. That alone made it different from traditional healthcare delivery. Because of the experiential nature of the care, it was always going to be expensive to provide. That challenge was compounded by the fact that many standard business and financial services would not participate because of federal illegality.
We realized the real business problem was at the meta level: how do we help providers, facilitators, and service centers lower their cost of doing business so those savings can reach clients? We believe this work will be extremely important for mental health, wellness, and social cohesion. We wanted to make it accessible. From my own experience with underground psychedelic-assisted care, I saw that access often sits with people in positions of privilege, not always those in greatest need. Lowering the cost of care delivery was one concrete step toward changing that.
That has been our North Star from the beginning.
Learning From the Field
Lia: It sounds like you were putting yourselves in the shoes of practitioners and anticipating the obstacles to making this work accessible and safe for both practitioners and participants. Now that you have a substantial member base, what have you learned from them about what it means to participate in this field and what problems the association should be solving?
Britt: We’ve grown significantly. We now represent more than 50% of service centers in Oregon and Colorado, and about 20% to 25% of facilitators across those markets. As we add services, that continues to grow, which gives us a meaningful pool of people to learn from.
But even before that growth, I moved to Oregon right after Measure 109 passed and brought the team there to understand the needs on the ground. We spoke with people planning to open service centers, people going through training, and others preparing before licenses had even been issued. We wanted to know what kept them up at night and how we could be useful.
Early on, we already had some ideas. We had seen similar dynamics in cannabis: very little banking, no reliable merchant services [payment processing for debit and credit cards], and limited access to routine business tools that any normal clinic or service business would take for granted. We started laying the groundwork around those issues immediately.
Over time, it became clear that business services were essential. But one thing I hear repeatedly from our members is that most people in this field are not in it for the money. They are here to help people, and they are doing so. Oregon alone has seen roughly 18,000 people go through the program. Members tell us they want to continue doing this work because they see the benefits in people’s lives.
At the same time, there is a broader issue: awareness. We can bring in banks and merchant services, but that does not solve the fact that many people who could benefit do not even know these services exist. The people who are finding these programs now are often seekers—people who have already tried other options and are actively looking for something else that might help. That is only part of the population who could benefit.
So awareness has become one of the central issues facing service centers and facilitators. People need to know these services exist, understand what they offer, and be able to evaluate their value relative to out-of-pocket costs.
We’re also hearing a stronger call for advocacy. Members want support not just with business services like banking, merchant services, and human resources (HR), but also with policy. Some of the original regulations are not aligned with market realities. Questions around microdosing, transportation to and from services, and other practical issues have added complexity we could not fully anticipate at the outset.
What members are asking is clear: help us raise awareness, and help regulators understand what is happening on the ground so the rules can become more seamless, more accessible, and less burdensome. Not everyone is coming in for a large dose. Some people are engaging through microdosing, and that should involve a different regulatory framework because the dose is sub-perceptual [below the threshold of noticeable psychoactive effects].
As we continue growing, we remain focused on business services, and insurance is a major piece of that. But we also know that awareness and advocacy now have to be part of the equation.
Lia: I love that simple question: what does good look like? With an association, you can answer that from the collective experience of the people actually providing services and navigating all of the public health nuance. Leveraging a membership base to inform advocacy and engagement with regulators is exactly what should happen.
Britt: And they’re very engaged members. We moved from an open membership structure to a paid membership model. That can reduce participation in some cases, but because our members now receive meaningful goods and services as part of membership, the engagement has actually deepened.
Those members play an active role, and over time the organization will become increasingly member-led, with leadership elected from within the membership. That matters. These are not casual opinions dropped into a comment box. These are people who are deeply invested in the field’s success and who literally buy into that collective bargaining power.
Lia: Membership gives practitioners and centers a real mechanism for influence. What I find compelling is that this is a tried-and-true model. Associations like this already exist throughout the healthcare system. You’ve built something familiar and functional for psychedelic-assisted care.
Britt: Exactly. We looked to established healthcare models, particularly the American Psychological Association, as a framework for building legitimacy in this field. Professional malpractice insurance was a key part of that. It enabled consumer protection and turned anecdotal concerns into usable data through claims records. We are not reinventing the wheel here.
Why Insurance Matters Now
Lia: Let’s turn to the insurance product, because it’s a major step forward. On our prep call, I got emotional talking about it because these are the kinds of structural changes that matter if we want people to have real access to healing. What exactly is this insurance, and why is it so critical at this stage of market development?
Britt: Over the last four to four-and-a-half years, one of the NPA’s central goals has been to bring forward professional malpractice and general liability insurance. We knew these costs were likely to be disproportionately high relative to other budget items, and we were also seeing weak coverage terms in the market.
These policies are necessary for things like real estate, banking, and other business functions, but people were not getting what they truly needed from the available options. Without getting too far into the technical detail, we found a structure called a captive [an insurance company created to insure the risks of its members or parent organization] that gave us a path to bring these products to market.
We have now received approval from the state of Nevada, where we will be domiciled, to move forward. At this point, we are completing our raise and already have both firm and soft commitments. With Nevada’s approval and the raise coming together, we expect to be able to issue policies in the near future.
What matters most is that these policies are being written specifically for this space, based on the actual risks present in this space. They are not generic products being retrofitted by outside insurers to protect themselves from perceived exposure. We are designing insurance around the real operating conditions and real risk profile of psychedelic-assisted care. That means we expect to offer twice the coverage at roughly half the premium cost, which would be a major advance for facilitators and service centers trying to protect their businesses and their livelihoods.
Lia: To ground that a bit, in general healthcare, practitioners carry professional liability insurance so that if there is an adverse event [an unwanted or harmful outcome associated with care], they do not lose their house or life savings. It creates a barrier between the practitioner and catastrophic financial risk. What you’ve done is de-risk the work so people can participate in this field without taking on that level of exposure.
Britt: Exactly. It gives confidence to potential investors, to people considering opening a center or becoming a facilitator, and to consumers. It also protects participants by creating a path to recompense [financial remedy or compensation] if harm does occur. That helps create a level of safety and trust that simply does not exist without insurance.
Claims Data, Transparency, and Real Risk
Lia: You made an important point a moment ago about this being based on the true risk in the field. That gets into transparency. The existence of this insurance, and participation in it, can generate transparency where the field has historically lacked it. Can you explain how that works and why it matters?
Britt: When people think about insurance, they usually think about risk. But there is another side to it: claims data [records of insurance claims that show what harms occurred, how often, and with what financial consequences]. That data is extremely important in a space this new, especially in the U.S. context.
For decades, the drug war shaped public perception. People were told psychedelics would fry their brains, trap them in permanent hallucinations, or destroy their lives. That created a distorted understanding of both psychedelics themselves and psychedelic-assisted care. It also affects how people imagine adverse events and where they expect to find danger.
There is already discussion in this field about adverse events, and that matters. States may track them; advocacy groups may track them. But adverse events are often transient. They can include headaches, heart palpitations, or racing thoughts. Those matter, but the harder question is: what was the actual downstream harm? What was the financial or systemic consequence?
That is where things become murky. What we are trying to do is distinguish between anecdotal adverse events that occur during a session and claims data that shows whether those events actually led to financial harm for the individual, the provider, or the broader system. That allows us to separate perceived risk from real risk.
Lia: So this is really about perception versus reality. Because of the history of stigma and misinformation, the field has to work uphill. Accumulating facts in a quantifiable form lets you report to regulators, oversight bodies, and the public with much greater clarity. It also creates a quality-control function. As you identify trends and patterns in harm, that information can feed back into the field so practitioners and centers can improve safety and prevention.
Britt: Exactly. It’s about distinguishing discomfort from actual harm, and then showing people the difference with evidence. That is the kind of information other regulators will want as more states explore these programs. They want to know the true public health risk, the true risk to the state, and the actual implications of allowing these programs to operate. This kind of evidence helps decision-makers feel justified in moving forward.
Federal Interest and What Comes Next
Lia: The information itself is important, but so is the system you’ve built to produce and monitor it. That sends a message: we are self-monitoring as a field, we are collecting data, we are making it transparent, and we are learning from it. We’ve also seen significant federal signals recently, including a grant of more than $3 million to Oregon Health & Science University to study the impact of these state programs. How do you see those developments connecting?
Britt: I think it is very important that the federal government is now taking steps to understand how state programs are functioning. It signals that this is more than Oregon out on its own, doing something unusual in the West. The federal government is beginning to recognize that there is something here worth studying.
Once that signal is sent, it starts to reduce fear. Everyone understands that without federal dollars, these markets can only mature so far. There is not enough private money, and there will not be enough early participants to carry them to the next phase on their own. Federal attention creates the possibility that these programs could become larger and more durable.
That is one reason this moment matters. I do not think federal dollars were deployed in quite the same way to study state-level cannabis programs. So this is meaningful. It underscores the scale of what these operations could become.
Lia: You’re pointing toward something larger than research. The first investment may be in studying how the programs function, but eventually the real goal would be direct investment in care delivery itself. You can imagine a future where Medicare or Medicaid covers these services. That cannot happen without infrastructure like what the NPA is building: insurance, monitoring, and transparency. The timing is striking. You’re creating the systems that could support public access over time.
Britt: Exactly. The first step is research: understanding what is happening and how. From there, the federal government can start to explore whether changes in regulation or some kind of safe harbor [a legal protection that reduces the risk of enforcement or liability under certain conditions] could help secure and legitimize what is happening in Oregon, Colorado, and soon New Mexico.
A Five- to Ten-Year Outlook
Lia: Before we move to Q&A, we always ask a crystal-ball question. Looking five to 10 years ahead, what does the best-case scenario look like for this field, and what has to happen to get there?
Britt: In five to 10 years, access is going to proliferate in many interesting ways. One of the advocacy initiatives we are supporting is the rescheduling of psilocybin. That effort has already been submitted to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the agency is working with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on what rescheduling might look like.
So I would expect psilocybin, along with a number of other psychedelic substances, to be rescheduled within that time frame, either through U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determinations about medical use or through broader changes in federal law. That is the first critical step.
I also think major state markets will open within five years. We are likely to see California, New York, and even Texas open their doors. Once that happens, we will hit a tipping point. Large, populous states entering the market will drive much broader proliferation elsewhere.
What has to happen now is more of what many people in the field are already doing: determining what works, identifying what is needed to scale safely, and building the infrastructure that makes that possible. We are well on our way.
Lia: I agree. If we want safe scale, we need infrastructure like what the NPA is building, and we need to replicate it responsibly in other states. Keeping practitioners and centers at the heart of that design is essential. That is the part I care most deeply about.
Audience Q&A: Health Economics and Coverage Scope
Lia: Let’s move into Q&A. The first question is from Jodi New Delman: Is Britt accumulating health economic data on the cost offset of psychedelic medicine for chronic health conditions that are expensive for insurers, such as addiction, chronic pain, and conditions shaped by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) [potentially traumatic events in childhood that can affect long-term health] and stress physiology?
Britt: If the question is whether we are currently studying the health economics of these therapies relative to existing interventions, the answer is not yet. But it is absolutely aligned with where we want to go.
The best place to gather that kind of data is in real-world settings like Oregon and Colorado, because what we are seeing there is not just clinical trial evidence. It is real-world evidence [information gathered from actual care delivery outside controlled research settings] about how these services function in practice and what their cost implications may be.
There are still some constraints on accessing the right datasets at this stage because of where the programs are in their development. But over time, that economic analysis is going to be essential. If these services are ever going to be insured, they will need to demonstrate not only outcomes, but also economic viability relative to existing options. We are not studying that yet, but we expect to in the future.
Lia: That is such an important question. I suspect there are initiatives looking at it already, though I am not sure what is public yet. I would also hope some of the recent federal funding will support that analysis. It is critical if the system is going to make a future investment in these therapies.
The next questions are from Robert Lugo. First: do you have plans to offer coverage for ketamine providers in states where psychedelics are not yet legal, particularly with an eye toward future FDA approvals or state-level programs? Second: Do you work with licensed therapists in medical licensure states, such as Colorado, and facilitator-based [programs where trained non-clinician facilitators may deliver services under state rules] states, such as Oregon?
Britt: On ketamine, our initial focus is psilocybin services. But we do see a significant need among ketamine clinics, especially those providing off-label use [prescribing or administering an approved medication for a use not specifically approved by regulators]. That is an area we are actively exploring, and we do think there may be a meaningful role for us there in the near term.
As for clinicians versus facilitators, the answer is both. In Oregon, that could mean a facilitator who completed a training program and is now conducting sessions. In Colorado, it could mean a doctor who primarily practices in a clinical setting and also facilitates psilocybin sessions on the side. Both need this type of malpractice coverage.
A physician’s standard malpractice policy is not going to cover work delivered through a state psilocybin program. So they should think of this as a separate layer of protection, effectively an additional policy for that specific practice.
Lia: Right. Existing malpractice coverage usually does not extend to these treatments. If this is the treatment being delivered, there is exposure, and that exposure needs its own policy.
Britt: Exactly. Especially when the work is taking place under state programs. Even if it relates to a clinician’s broader practice, it sits outside the scope of conventional coverage and should be treated as a separate insurable entity.
Audience Q&A: Churches, Underground Practice, and Community Standards
Lia: The next question is from Megan Richmond: When do you see insurance being available for non-regulated work, specifically for churches? Would changes in federal law be necessary? And are there any updates or hope you can offer to places like ours?
Britt: We are looking into that as well. One advantage of the structure we have built is that it is a business-to-business insurance model. Because it operates through a captive, members of the NPA would ultimately be able to access our insurance products.
In the future, we want to explore how to provide similar protection for churches or even underground practitioners. What that really requires is a strong system of standards of care [agreed expectations for safe and competent practice], standards of excellence, and ethical practice. If those standards are in place, whether someone operates in a regulated or unregulated setting, there may be a path toward insurability.
Our first priority is to get these products into the hands of the licensed providers we originally set out to serve. But the model is flexible, and there are doors open to eventually offer similar forms of coverage—either through the same policy structure or through related products—for churches, underground practitioners, and others.
Lia: If you were to move in that direction, would you likely partner with organizations such as the Sacred Plant Alliance (SPA), which has already developed standards, or would you create your own?
Britt: We would lean into the field. We are not sitting in an ivory tower deciding what things should look like. The process would come from members and from the broader community. We would ask what is already working, who has already developed ethical codes or standards, and what can be adopted, refined, and elevated through consensus.
Our role is not to dictate. It is to identify where consensus already exists and help bring that forward in a useful, durable form.
Lia: So there is a deep commitment to community-based wisdom and learning from the field itself about what is needed, what is possible, and what best serves both participants and practitioners.
Britt: That is exactly right. This has never been done before. It is entirely new. Anyone claiming to have it all figured out is probably missing the point. The people on the ground—those who have worked with thousands of participants in Oregon and who will do the same in Colorado—know more than anyone else because they have lived it. There are too many unknowns for this to be solved from a distance.
The Raise and Final Reflections
Lia: We only have a few minutes left, but I think we’ve clearly established how important the NPA’s work is for growth, safety, scale, and access. That brings me to your raise for the insurance product. You are doing a heavy lift here. Can you say more about what the raise is for and what you need?
Britt: We have de-risked this as much as possible at this stage. We have assessed and surveyed the field, identified the core risks, run actuarial [risk-based financial modeling used in insurance] scenarios, and worked closely with regulators to understand what is required. We presented our case to the state of Nevada, and they approved us to move forward.
At this point, we are completing the raise. For legal reasons, I cannot go too far into the specifics, but we are still seeking committed individuals who want to support the initiative so we can finalize the raise and move quickly. We already have dollars in and commitments secured.
Lia: Can you say what the target amount is?
Britt: Our current target is $3 million. That will cover the regulatory capital [required reserve funds to support the insurance company and its policies] needed to back the policies we write, as well as give us the runway to staff appropriately and pursue expansion into areas like churches, ketamine clinics, and underground practitioner coverage.
The difficult hurdles were the ones we have already crossed: helping regulators understand that this market is insurable, that the risks are not outsized, and that unmanaged risks can be turned into managed risks [risks that can be reduced, priced, and monitored through standards and systems]. Once risks are managed through things like accreditation [formal recognition that an organization or program meets defined standards] and credentialing [verification of a practitioner’s qualifications], the entire system becomes safer and more investable.
Lia: Having founded an insurance company myself, I can say that number sounds realistic. You have also shown that you use funds efficiently. This is not your first rodeo. And the point you just made is important: building the rest of the ecosystem around the policy also takes resources.
I’m hoping those funds come together quickly so the field can keep moving. I also want to end on this note: what you are doing is technically complex work, but you do it with heart. We appreciate that, and we appreciate you taking the time to speak with us today.
Britt: Lia, I appreciate you as well. Ever since that day in Aspen, I’ve been very fond of you and your work. Thank you for having me. This has been wonderful.
Lia: It has truly been a pleasure. And what makes these conversations meaningful is the people who show up for them. Thank you all for being here and for the thoughtful questions. We’ll send out the recording, and we hope you’ll share it with others who could not attend.
What Britt has described today marks an inflection point in what is possible for state-level programs, and that is worth celebrating. Thank you so much, Britt.
