Now I under$tand why the state surrendered the drug war....
"Bain Capital sees opportunity in methadone clinics" by Beth Healy| Globe Staff April 13, 2014
Clinics like this one on Topeka Street in Boston can be lifesavers for addicts trying to kick heroin or other opiates. Reports of heroin overdoses and deaths are on the rise as cheap and potent versions of the drug — sometimes laced with the pain medication fentanyl — flood the market. Governor Deval Patrick has declared it a public health emergency.
For Bain Capital, it’s also a potential profit opportunity.
The Boston-based private equity firm recently took over Habit OPCO Inc., the largest chain of substance treatment facilities in Massachusetts, with 13 locations from Boston to Springfield. Bain paid $58 million to acquire the for-profit centers through CRC Health Corp., a California company it has owned since 2006. CRC Health is the biggest provider of substance abuse treatment and behavioral health services in the country.
This foray into one of the most challenging, and financially complex, areas of health care may seem contrary to the kind of dealmaking Bain Capital is best known for — investments in brand-name companies like Dunkin’ Donuts and Bright Horizons child care.
But as opiates ravage communities from rural Vermont to Hollywood, treating addiction has become big business. The push for national health care, and recent changes to federal health insurance laws could make it even more attractive. Substance abuse treatment is a $7.7 billion industry, according to a recent report by IBISWorld Inc., a New York research firm, and growing at an annual rate of about 2 percent.
I think we are $eeing part of the problem as to why the the drug war has been unendingly unwinnable. It's an "indu$try" now.
Heroin and prescription drug addiction is “a giant problem in Boston; it’s a giant problem across the country,’’ said General Barry R. McCaffrey, who served as drug czar in the Clinton administration and has been on the CRC Health board since before Bain was involved with the company.
(Blog editor simply shakes head at the $elf-$erving a$$hole)
Methadone is often stigmatized, he acknowledged, but for some addicts — when it’s used in combination with counseling and other treatments — the substitute drug makes a dramatic difference in their lives.
“Methadone will allow you to go from a dangerous, chaotic life to getting control of your life, getting your children back, getting a job,’’ McCaffrey said.
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Dive into the numbers and you will find many addicts who don’t fit the stereotype of back-alley junkies.
Opiates are affecting “a more middle- and upper-middle-class demographic,” said Deni Carise, deputy chief clinical officer for CRC Health. “Addiction has always been an equal opportunity illness.’’
That may mean more well-insured clients, but treating them remains a tricky business proposition.
For one, health care professionals say addicts can be difficult patients. Beyond that, running a clinic is expensive and labor intensive.
Habit OPCO charges patients $135 a week for methadone treatment. That includes daily doses of liquid medication, access to doctors and nurses, therapists, and other services. Some people have private insurance; others use Medicaid, the government program for low-income people; or they pay cash.
Many patients take methadone, an opiate that’s safer than heroin, for months or years. It doesn’t cure addiction, but relieves withdrawal symptoms and allows many people to function and work without getting high.
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Many health care providers involved in substance-abuse treatment believe methadone clinics are an essential option. News last week that Boston officials plan to close the only city-run methadone center, near Boston Medical Center, has alarmed some doctors.
“It’s hard to find a good methadone clinic,’’ said Dr. Kevin P. Hill, director of the Substance Abuse Consultation Service at McLean Hospital in Belmont. The staff at the city clinic, just blocks from Habit OPCO’s Boston location, “are very highly thought of,’’ he said. “They’re certainly one of the best, if not the best, and treat some of the most difficult patients.’’
If the city-run operation shuts down, just four licensed methadone clinics will remain in Boston, two of them for-profits, according to the state Department of Public Health. Without singling out Habit OPCO, Hill said he worries for-profits cut corners that diminish the quality of care.
“The problem I find with some of the for-profit clinics is the absolute minimum required by law becomes the absolute maximum they’re willing to do for their patients,’’ Hill said.
Staff at CRC and at Habit OPCO say profits are not their priority. That’s an unusual position to take for executives at an enterprise owned by Bain. The investment firm makes money by buying companies and reselling them at a profit, often after reducing staff and costs.
“Frankly, the way to make a lot of money in this particular business is to do it badly,’’ CRC’s Carise said. “We’re just not going to do that.’’
You $ee?
I'm no longer complaining about the benevolence of corporate government.
Both CRC and Habit OPCO were previously owned by venture capitalists, so this is not their first foray into for-profit management. But private equity firm ownership can add a financial burden by heaping debt on a company’s books.
All for your own good.
Bain bought CRC for $723 million, putting $295 million of its investors’ money down and borrowing the rest. CRC currently owes $775 million to bankers. The interest payments alone are $49 million a year — enough to wipe out most of CRC’s $64.8 million operating profit in 2012.
Who$e benefiting out of the deal?
So far, Bain’s bet on methadone clinics has not paid off. Not only does the firm still have all of its money in CRC, it still owns the company after eight years. Typically, Bain sells within five to seven years.
Not the first time they have invested in a loser.
I didn't know there was a growing mainstream interest in kosher food. Talk about the inter$ection of interests in my paper....
All of that increases the pressure to grow profits at CRC and Habit OPCO. Bain executives declined to comment, but CRC officials said they consider acquisitions like Habit OPCO to be opportunities to increase scale and bring in more business. In addition, CRC’s Carise said, the federal Affordable Care Act and a law requiring equal insurance coverage for mental health conditions will give clinics more access to private payers, and help make services more affordable for people who were previously uninsured.
Isn't it amazing that as soon as Obummercare was to go into effect this surge of bad heroin $tarted $howing up?
For now, the revenue trend is heading in the right direction for Bain. CRC’s net income of $6.3 million in 2012 marked an improvement from $2.5 million in 2011, and a loss of $46 million in 2010. Figures for 2013 are not available, because the company no longer has to make them public.
“This field, substance abuse, is going to be more changed than any other,’’ Carise said. “We’ve pretty much convinced the country now that this is a health care issue. This isn’t about bad people trying to become good. This is about ill people trying to get well.’’
OMG! That's far more sympathy than was shown people who smoked pot who now languish in jail!
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Once again, no talk of where the poison is coming from, who is trafficking it, and where the profits are being laundered -- and now Bain is going to benefit off the back end.
Time to go take a shot.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
There may not even be a crisis because there is no information or evidence. Looks like it's all been another $elf-$erving agenda pu$h and scare from the propaganda pre$$.
"Full extent of the opiate crisis in Mass. unknown; Overdose, death, location data lacking" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff April 14, 2014
Massachusetts is under siege from a frightening surge of heroin overdoses, Governor Deval Patrick said last month in declaring a state of emergency. That grim view has become unquestioned consensus among law enforcement, health workers, and devastated families.
That's when one needs to hit the brakes and reevaluate!
But even as officials from Beacon Hill to town halls rush to respond to the crisis, its full scope remains unknown. No real-time data are collected by state health officials to show how many overdoses are occurring, how many deaths are resulting, and where the toll is greatest.
In this age of total surveillance and data collection?
Hmmmmmm!
As a result, police and health officials in large cities and small communities are scrambling on their own to map and react to the crisis rather than wait for data from the state Department of Public Health, which only last week released its count of opiate-related deaths for 2012.
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“The lag time is a disgrace. It’s a combination of indifference and ineptness on DPH’s part,” said David Sullivan, the Northwestern district attorney, whose office serves Hampshire and Franklin counties.
By contrast, he said, federal officials keep up-to-date records on disease outbreaks. “If I call the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they can tell me how many people died of the flu last week.”
Meaning we are being fed lame excuses by authority once again.
And they wonder why we don't believe a damn word anymore?
State officials said the health department is hampered by a labor-intensive system in which death certificates are still recorded on paper by the state medical examiner, whose office generally takes three months to confirm a fatality as opiate-related. Then, staff members from the Department of Public Health must review all those certificates every year, enter the information into an electronic system, and code the data.
“DPH is working with cities and towns to improve data collection to better track and understand these emerging trends,” said Anne Roach, department spokeswoman. Roach declined to provide details of those improvements.
(Blog editor sighs)
Whatever the state agency is doing, Sullivan said, the work needs to be expedited to help local officials grasp the extent and location of the opiate problem. “This isn’t complicated,” said the district attorney, who suggested that the health department create a website portal to allow every first responder in the state to record suspected overdoses immediately.
The state will make it so.
“Nobody really took responsibility for this public health crisis. With this spike in opiate overdoses, they just didn’t recognize that you need good data to make good decisions,” Sullivan said.
What? Government basing decision on garbage? In AmeriKa?
Since Feb. 25, news media and public officials trying to gauge the impact of heroin and other opiates have relied almost exclusively on a State Police report that counted 185 overdose deaths in Massachusetts since November. But even that figure is understated — and possibly substantially so — because the report did not include deaths in Boston, Worcester, and Springfield, where local police lead their own investigations into suspicious and unattended fatalities. Elsewhere in Massachusetts, the State Police assign homicide detectives to each county’s district attorney’s office to investigate deaths. Those detectives combed their records since November to arrive at the 185 figure, but that number is speculative. In a change from their original statement, State Police now say that many of those deaths are suspected to be opiate-related but have not been confirmed.
That review was conducted by the State Police as an independent response to the intense public interest in the overdose surge, said David Procopio, the State Police spokesman. Although State Police do not routinely compile overdose numbers, Procopio said the agency thought it was important to provide up-to-date statistics.
“We’re of the mind that the more information the public has, the better, both for the public and the policy makers, to make informed decisions,” Procopio said. “I would expect more of it. Hopefully, this won’t be a one-time thing.”
Did the state police officer's tongue turn to sand after saying that?
I think I'm overdosing on Globe bs folks, and it's not only the me$$age, it is the me$$anger. I'm finding it harder and harder to read this Orwellian slop issuing forth in so many articles these days.
Adding suspected fatalities from Boston, Worcester, and Springfield probably would swell the State Police tally by dozens. But there is little uniformity in the release of those numbers. In Boston, the latest state figures are from 2011; in Worcester, they date from August.
The state Public Health Department did not make any officials available to discuss the data. In Boston and Worcester, officials have moved to track overdoses and suspected fatalities on their own.
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Terrel Harris, spokesman for the state Executive Office of Public Safety, said improvements in data collection are nearing. According to Harris, the Registry of Vital Records and Statistics is working on an electronic death-certificate system that is scheduled to be running in June. “This means medical examiners as well as physicians in the community will be using this system. It will eliminate the paper death certificates,” Harris said.
In Taunton, which has been hit hard by heroin overdoses, a city worker who is helping lead the fight against drugs said she would welcome faster statewide data.
“I would like to know whether the areas around us are seeing it, whether the smaller towns also are seeing overdoses,” said Jennifer Bastille, program adviser for the city’s Safe Neighborhood Initiative. “I can’t say it would make the job easier. But it certainly could show a trend — that we are seeing more overdoses in this area, and we could focus our efforts there.”
What I find needling is the reactive stance taking by authority when they are proactive about so many other things!
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Related: Are baby boomers ready to give marijuana a second chance?
Globe smoked it in secret because it didn't make my print yesterday.
Also see: Pot Cookie Killed Colorado Kid
It's why I now oppose medicalization now.
