Dr. Doreen Fukushima of Ho'ola Pono Recently Featured on Close Up Radio

PEARL CITY, HI, UNITED STATES, May 6, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Abraham Lincoln once stated that “a man who represents himself, has a fool for a client.” However, regarding the experiences surrounding our guest, it seems to be the opposite. As she has been fighting the good fight regarding the treatment of mental health patients, she has often been forced to represent herself due to the incompetence, belligerence, and outright corruption of the law firms that she has retained. Despite this uphill battle, she remains hopeful. This is the story of Dr. Doreen Fukushima.

Dr. Doreen Fukushima is a respected psychiatrist and the founder of Ho'ola Pono. Based on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, Ho'ola Pono, which is Hawaiian for “to make well”, offers unique psychiatry services and treatments in addition to standard talk therapy.

One specialty treatment that Dr. Fukushima offers is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). “It’s an FDA-approved procedure that treats depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder without medication,” explains Dr. Fukushima. “It’s a magnet that goes outside of the head, and it gives an electrical pulse, similar to an MRI machine.”

“It’s a safe and effective way to jump start the neurons to have them function the way they are supposed to be working,” she adds.

Another specialty treatment that Dr. Fukushima also offers is Spravato. Also known generically as Esketamine, Spravato is a form of Ketamine, which is an anesthetic medication. Created by Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) for use as a nasal spray, it helps people get through their past traumas and significant depression. “This makes people feel less guarded and more open to talking, when they are dealing with their traumas,” summarizes Dr. Fukushima. “It also improves the malleability of the brain.”

While Spravato has been federally approved by the FDA in 2019, the Hawaii Medical Service Association (HMSA), who also approved it in 2020, has given Dr. Fukushima a difficult time in reimbursing her practice for treating patients using Spravato.

For this special hour-long podcast, Dr. Fukushima recaps her legal issues and also provides updates. She also offers a perspective on the process by which doctors receive reimbursement from the insurance companies for treatments, as well as offering her opinion regarding the mental fitness of attorneys.

“In medicine, we’re trained with evidence-based medicine,” Dr. Fukushima declares. “You go with the best evidence and the best treatments. However, in the current world we live in, it’s insurance-based medicine.”

“Will insurance cover it?” she rhetorically asks. “Why isn’t insurance held to the same standard of what we, the doctors, are trained to do?”

Dr. Fukushima, being ever-so detailed and meticulous in her paperwork, followed all procedures accordingly, yet HMSA refused to further reimburse her for using Spravato, and demanded their money back. They alleged that she used the wrong billing codes. Not long after, Tricare, an insurance for active duty military members and their families, also revoked reimbursing her.

“What they don’t tell people in medicine is that when we get an approval from the FDA, it means that we can bill the insurance companies – it doesn’t mean that they will pay,” Dr. Fukushima observes. “They can make up their own rules. Unfortunately, every denied payment is money in the CEO’s pocket.”

“I have not been compensated for treatments in nineteen months,” she adds. “Despite the challenges, I have really been fighting for my patients."

Especially those that have benefitted from her good work, have returned the favor. In addition to Dr. Fukushima and her staff, her patients have also been writing letters and calling Tricare to reinstate reimbursement for the use of her treatments.

In addition, Dr. Fukushima eventually retained the law firm Cades Schutte to help her case. Initially, they assured her that she was compliant with the instructions from HMSA. However, due to a series of botched events including one of their attorneys having a panic attack during one of the hearings, the arbitrator ruled against her.

“I lost as badly as anyone could lose,” Dr. Fukushima frustratingly recalls.

The law firm filed a restraining order against her when she asked for help as their poor performance cost her almost $500,000. Dr. Fukushima suspects that there may be corruption between the law firm and HMSA.

Dr. Fukushima eventually worked with a second attorney which also did not work out. This second attorney is now suing her, yet she has already paid this attorney thousands of dollars. All the while, this second attorney filed in the wrong court and made personal purchases using Dr. Fukushima’s credit card. Dr. Fukushima fears that this second attorney might be mentally unstable.

Due to her prior bad experiences with attorneys, Dr. Fukushima is leading the push to ensure that attorneys are mentally fit to perform their jobs.

“As a psychiatrist, I have been getting nowhere with the legal system as it is so broken,” Dr. Fukushima notes. “I am a strong advocate, and when they get cornered, they make up things to deflect accusations.”

Kaiser-Permanente has also denied Spravato treatments to one of her patients. It went all the way to a hearing, to which Dr. Fukushima noted many inconsistencies from Kaiser. This includes identifying other psychiatrists in Hawaii that allegedly use Spravato to treat their patients. Ultimately, Dr. Fukushima discovered that they didn’t. Also, the confirming paperwork from Kaiser turned out to be completely illegible.

“As you can see, even Kaiser has also given us the runaround many times,” she summarizes.

Currently, there has been some good news for Dr. Fukushima. Things started to turn around with her third and current attorney, Frank O’Brien. “He was a hard man to find,” she appreciates. He already has written an appeal against the allegation from Cades Schutte, her first attorney. In a similar observation to that of Dr. Fukushima, Mr. O'Brien believes there was an injustice with the placement of a harassment injunction placed on Dr. Fukushima and is trying to rectify the error as best he can with the appeal he filed.

Despite the financial difficulties, she continues to treat her patients and pay for these treatments out of her own pocket. For how long she can sustain this, remains to be seen.

Regarding a situation like this, people often are compelled to ask, “Who benefits?” Dr. Fukushima, responds that “it’s NOT the patient, and NOT the doctor!”

“Because I am so pushy, maybe I should have been a lawyer,” Dr. Fukushima jokingly concludes.

Close Up Radio recently featured Dr. Doreen Fukushima in a multi-part, hour-long interview with Doug Llewelyn on Wednesday April 30th at 1pm Eastern / 7am Hawaii

Listen to the Podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-1-close-up-radio-welcomes-back-psychiatrist-dr/id1785721253?i=1000705677314
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-close-up-radio-242020413/episode/part-1-close-up-radio-welcomes-273852920/
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0EvQNQrLAn0Q3sl7r3Bjv6

For more information, please visit https://hoolaponotmshawaii.com/

Lou Ceparano
Close Up Television & Radio
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