Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com May 25, 2015 • Worcester Business Journal 11 Treatment options grow to combat rising opiate crisis Make a gift to the C A M P A I G N Please contact the QCC Foundation at qccfoundation@qcc.mass.edu Gifts of $1,000 and above will be listed on a community wall. Save The Date Hosted by the QCC Foundation For further information, please visit www.QCC.edu/foundation Proceeds to benefit the RISE campaign Co-chairs, Mary DiBara and Jim Harrington A humorous celebration of 50 years Wednesday, June 17, 2015 Mechanics Hall, Worcester Doors open 5:30 p.m. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the FUTURE Connections_Spring_2015_FINAL.indd 32 3/3/15 4:03 Wednesday, June 17, 2015 Mechanics Hall, Worcester 5:30 p.m. An interactive, comedic evening celebrating QCC's history, family and friends Dinner and Program Jim Harrington and Mary DiBara, Co-Chairs Proceeds to beneft the Regional Investment in Service and Education (RISE) Campaign Susan Mailman, Chair, RISE Campaign Business attire. Sit down plated dinner. Cash bar. $100 per ticket $1,000 per table (ten seats) RSVP by Wednesday, June 10, 2015 www.QCC.edu/RSVP-50th - Featuring - Celebrating Years gram for low-income residents, typi- cally provides the best coverage for inpatient treatment. Under the new law, private insurers must also cover several days of intensive detox — essentially the medical process of cleaning drugs from the patient's body — as well as step-down programs that continue medical treatment while beginning to address the underlying addiction. From treatment to recovery After patients graduate from those intensive treatment levels, DiGravio said, they may move on to transitional support and residential recovery homes. Those programs typically aren't covered by Mass Health or other insurers. Instead, they're funded through state contracts and open to everyone, regard- less of their insurance. Meanwhile, DiGravio said, there are also facilities where families pay cash, but those are less common in Massachusetts. The new centers being planned across the state include two new loca- tions in Wenham and Danvers for the for-profit Recovery Centers of America. Another for-profit company, Acadia Healthcare, is building a new hospital for treatment of mental illness and sub- stance abuse in Dartmouth in partner- ship with Southcoast Health. In Central Massachusetts, Spectrum is replacing an existing residential facil- ity in Westborough, increasing its capacity from 80 to 100 beds. Meanwhile, it's adding a 36-bed pri- vate-pay facility called the New England Recovery Center. Spokesman Brendan Melican said Spectrum has always focused on publicly funded care, but it's starting to broaden its offerings. "The whole industry is seeing demand from people for smaller facili- ties catering just to people who pay out of pocket," he said. In-state expansion for Spectrum Health Spectrum CEO Charles Faris has said the private-pay facility will help pay for the parallel, publicly funded site. Meanwhile, the company continues to launch new outpatient services. In early May, it opened a medication-assisted treatment program in North Adams and a support center focused on peer- based groups in Lawrence. In the northern part of Central Massachusetts, meanwhile, Heywood Hospital is moving through the regula- tory process for Quabbin Retreat, a behavioral health and substance abuse treatment center in Petersham. The hospital expects the center to open early next spring and eventually grow to include 65 beds for substance abuse and detox treatment, plus another 20 for mental health treatment. Rebecca Bialecki, Heywood's vice president for community health initia- tives, said the center will accept all pay- ers. While the plan for the facility was in place before the state's new insurance rule was approved, Bialecki said it helps that more private insurance money will be available for this sort of treatment by the time it opens. According to Heywood, Central M a s s a c h u s e t t s , and North Central in particular, is underserved to the point where Heywood turns aw ay 2 , 5 0 0 patients in urgent need of care every year. "In our region, we've been partic- ularly hard hit by the opiate crisis, which is driving a lot of the increase in demand," Bialecki said. "North Worcester County has lit- erally no services at all at this point, aside from some outpatient treatment." Even before the new location opens, Heywood is working to address the crisis, said Dawn Casavant, vice presi- dent of external affairs and chief phi- lanthropy officer. With the help of state funding, the hospital has been building systems over the past two years to pro- vide continuing care for addicts who frequently end up at the hospital's emergency departments in Gardner and Athol. The program's employees check in with the patients regularly and help them find services such as trans- portation and child care so they can get regular care in a less intensive setting. New insurance rules will help patients At AdCare, the Worcester hospital that serves substance abuse patients, Lisa Clark, vice president of marketing and business development, said the new insurance rules should be a big help for patients. Right now, she said, getting insurance approval can be a "lengthy, onerous process," particularly since each insurer has its own set of policies. Clark said AdCare has been hit hard by the area's increased opiate problem. "We are pretty much running a waiting list constantly," she said. Clark said one benefit from the expanded insurance coverage should be that patients can get whatever kind of help that's most appropriate for their condition. Right now, she said, it's com- mon for addiction to go unaddressed for too long, or be addressed with inap- propriate treatment. "The goal is really to admit the patient to the level of care that they need," she said. "You wouldn't treat somebody that was having a heart attack the same way you'd treat some- body with high cholesterol." n Vic DiGravio of the Association for Behavioral Healthcare: Demand for treatment "far outstrips" capacity. >> Continued from Page 1

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