Venerable Non-Profit to Open New England High-End Center

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

03/25/2015 -ATIN – One of the nation’s oldest and best managed non-profit addiction treatment institutions, based in New England but with operations in slightly less than 10 states a growth spurt in the mid-1990s left the institution one of the largest addictions non-profits in the nation with over $50M in annual revenues and still growing fast and which will soon open a new high-end center right near the non-profit’s founding locale in Massachusetts. Called The New England Recovery Center, the new 35-bed center is actually not that expensive compared to other centers offering similar high-end amenities with the cost of a 30-day stay amounting to a total of $15K, or $500 per day. According to published reports, the $500 per day rate is six times higher than what the Massachusetts state run health system pays on average per day, per bed for addiction treatment services in the state.

Spectrum Health Systems

Founded just over 45 years ago, Spectrum Health Systems, the name of the non-profit behind the opening next month of the 35-bed New England Recovery Center opening in Worcester, MA in the same town that Spectrum’s headquarters is now to also to be found. According to the company’s website, through a period of diversification and acquisition, Spectrum now has over 125 different programs with a wide diversification of payor mix long before such diversification became fashionable and, indeed, necessary for survival.

Following Caron’s Model

The mission of Spectrum is clearly one in which helping the disadvantaged is a major priority, which left some observers wondering why an entity like Spectrum would be opening high end addiction treatment facilities, even though $500-a-day is a very reasonable high end rate. Clearly Spectrum is following a strategy first developed by Caron in the South Florida market with its 12-bed Florida Model ultra high-end Ocean Drive facility in Delray Beach, FL. Ultimately what the strategy is at Ocean Drive is a “Robin Hood” type of play where the huge profits at the ultra high end facility are used to help the highly disadvantaged get full scholarships to Caron. According to published reports, and Spectrum executives did not mention Caron by name, Spectrum clearly is imitating the Ocean Drive model expecting to take the higher profits at New England Recovery Center and apply the monies toward bigger scholarship payouts throughout Spectrum’s wide diversity of programs.