Found in a rich man's paper:
"New rehab facility caters to high-end patients; If you want drug treatment in Massachusetts and are willing to pay $500 a day, a new facility has you covered" by Priyanka Dayal McCluskey, Globe Staff March 22, 2015
Mornings start with yoga and meditation. Then there’s breakfast, the first of three gourmet meals a day. After dinner, a massage helps to calm the mind and muscles before bed.
This isn’t a resort vacation. It’s rehab.
As the heroin epidemic has grown in Massachusetts, so has the number of addicts with deep pockets looking to kick their habit. And to tap into this market, Spectrum Health Systems Inc., a Worcester-based addiction services provider, next month will open a residential treatment facility that offers such amenities in this Central Massachusetts town. The new facility will serve people who want to escape a life of drugs and can pay as much as $500 a day to do it.
I'm sure they want to do good work, but I'm no longer liking the motive for treatment -- and it tells you a lot about the cavalier attitude toward the whole thing. Where it's coming from (Afghanistan) and who is bringing it into the country (CIA) is never discussed because of the ultimate beneficiaries (black money for black budgets and the bottom line of money-laundering banks). Compassion is brought to bear for those who need recovery while a big stink is made over marijuana usage.
Spectrum is one of many companies — both nonprofit and for-profit — looking to boost their bottom lines by catering to this lucrative end of the market.
The fact that it is seen as some sort of lucrative market is sick, and how ob$cene is it that ADDICTION to MONEY is NOT considered an ILLNE$$?
The $35 billion drug treatment industry has attracted for-profit heavyweights such as the Boston private equity firm Bain Capital and spawned companies such as Tennessee-based American Addiction Centers Inc., which launched a successful initial public stock offering in October.
I've seen their ads on TV, and Bain is only getting in because Bo$ton is getting out(?). Too many tax breaks for rich real estate developers and the like must be why the school budgets and such are $o $trained.
Another industry leader and publicly held company, Acadia Healthcare Co. of Tennessee, saw its revenues rise 41 percent last year, to $1 billion.
And who would want to kill the goose with the golden needle, 'eh?
“It’s a profitable business,” said Paula Torch, a senior analyst at Avondale Partners LLC in Nashville. “There’s so much demand. There’s a lot of people who need help and not enough beds for treatment.”
Uh-oh.
For Spectrum, a nonprofit with locations across Massachusetts, revenue from its new 36-bed treatment center will help subsidize care for people on the other end of the income scale, addicts whose treatment is funded with taxpayer dollars, said Charles Faris, Spectrum’s chief executive.
“We want to respond to the opiate demand,” Faris said. “We’re going after some of the private market that will allow us to continue serving the public market.”
Founded in 1969, Spectrum operates a variety of inpatient and outpatient treatment centers in 13 Massachusetts communities. Spectrum’s earnings have slid in recent years. The company earned $1.6 million, on revenue of $51 million, in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2013, the most recent year for which data are available.
And they $ee this as a new injection or revenue, huh?
A monthlong stay in the new facility, called the New England Recovery Center, will run about $15,000, six times higher than what the state pays for inpatient rehabilitation. With the higher price tag come perks such as yoga and meditation classes, a fitness center, laundry service, housekeeping, and, for an added cost, massage therapy and personal training. Residents here will get more personalized care. The program also includes services to help their families cope.
It really is becoming (and has been) that two-tiered society that scum John Edwards once talked about long ago. Think that had anything to do with his downfall, the stupid $hit?
The New England Recovery Center bears no resemblance to Spectrum’s lower-end facility across the street, with its dated brick facade, cramped rooms, and dark hallways. The new building is bathed in light and painted in bright blues and reds and yellows. The focal point is a common room with a high ceiling and wood beams, almost like a ski lodge.
Maybe white powder isn't the best theme for.... never mind.
“We want it to feel state of the art,” Faris said. “The environment matches the quality of care we’re providing.”
The building, set on a quiet street here, 30 miles west of Boston, cannot compete with the super-luxurious spa-like rehab centers on the warm beaches of Malibu and Fort Lauderdale — which can run $50,000 a month or higher. But Spectrum executives believe it will appeal to financially well-off addicts who want to get treatment close to home. Staying in Massachusetts for residential treatment means it will be easier for patients to continue meetings and counseling once they transition to outpatient treatment.
“That aftercare plan is vital to recovery,” said Kristin Nolan, Spectrum’s vice president for outpatient services.
Heroin use and overdoses have become such a scourge in Massachusetts that then-governor Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency last year, and lawmakers later passed a law to tackle the problem through a variety of measures, including strengthening requirements that insurers pay for addiction treatment.
Many addicts first get hooked on prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone and morphine, then switch to heroin because it’s a fraction of the price of pills.
Another reason the source of problem is treated with shallow superficiality. Certain intere$ts are threatened.
The state Department of Public Health estimated there were about 980 deaths from opioid overdoses in Massachusetts in 2013, a 46 percent jump from 2012. The department has not released figures for last year.
That is astonishing to me.
Spectrum and other drug abuse treatment providers have noticed a change in the profile of their clients. For years, the people seeking treatment tended to be poor and jobless. They had criminal records and lacked supportive families. But now the population includes many educated young adults from well-off suburban families. Their parents are desperate to do — and pay — almost anything to get them healthy.
Is that why it is finally getting "attention," and who benefits?
“The opiate crisis has really reached middle- and upper-middle-class America in a way that perhaps didn’t exist five or 10 years ago,” said Raymond V. Tamasi, chief executive of Gosnold on Cape Cod, another nonprofit addiction services provider.
Gosnold serves a range of patients, including those who pay $16,000 a month for a program that offers perks similar to what Spectrum is planning.
For those who can afford it, places such as McLean Hospital, part of the Partners HealthCare network, offer more luxurious surroundings, services, and amenities. McLean opened a new rehab facility last week in Camden, Maine , that is priced at $2,250 a day — or $67,500 a month.
The Camden facility, which has just eight beds, is set on a hilltop estate with private ocean-view bedrooms, a bowling alley, a movie theater, and a beauty salon.
I should start doing heroin so I can get a trip to this place. Wow. Some rehab! No AA there!
“They’re able to get a richer therapy experience,” said Philip Levendusky, senior vice president of business development and communications at Belmont-based McLean. “In the self-pay market, we can build in therapeutic strategies that are above and beyond.”
Richer -- in more ways than one!
Insurance companies typically cover the costs of outpatient services — such as clinics that provide methadone, a common treatment for opioid addiction — but they usually don’t cover residential programs that last weeks or months.
As a result, most of Massachusetts’ rehab beds depend on public funding. The state pays $75 per person per day for these programs — well below what it costs Spectrum to provide them, Faris said.
Yeah, no money in treating poor, jobless, homeless, hopeless. Better off they die, 'eh?
That’s why the company needs to pick up more paying customers, he said — it’s about the survival of the business.
And what does that ultimately mean? An increase in heroin addicts.
$eems like a conflict of intere$t to me, if you know what I mean.
In addition to the New England Recovery Center, Spectrum is constructing another facility on its Westborough campus that will offer added services to some program residents at a higher cost.
“That’s the reason we’re doing this,” Faris said. “We want to serve both ends of the population.”
While $erving themselves!
--more--"
Also see: Recovering addicts find skills, support at Cafe Reyes
Yeah, my name i.... almost got me there!
