Newport Academy in East Coast Expansion

10/07/2013 -ATIN – 

Northeast Clientele

CEO Jamison Monroe, a treatment entrepreneur-in-recovery who was a ubiquitous presence on the addictions conference circuit before he teamed up with his Texas-based family’s investment interests to found Newport Academy in 2008, says he has seen a lot of Northeast clientele come to the existing West Coast Newport Academy facilities, prompting him and his family interests to make the move to open the new facility, which is expected to begin accepting clients as early as Nov 1. And indeed there has been a particular surge in well-to-do suburban areas of heroin abuse amongst the young in the Northeast of late, a deep vein of treatment demand for Newport Academy to tap into.

Relatively Few Options

There are relatively few options at the higher end in the Northeast to compete on the level of care offered on the West Coast for addiction treatment, which has prompted new opeings in eastern Pennsylvania like Clarity Way and old line providers like Sliver Hill to beef up their clinical offerings, as well as their facilities. The dearth at the high-end is particularly keen in the adolescent sphere, where Caron’s large youth program has been the dominant high end East Coast adolescent addiction treatment provider for decades and will likely remain so despite the entry of aggressive new competitors like the Monroe family’s Newport Academy. Caron is investing heavily in Florida with its recent Hanley Center acquisition and where its youth oriented Renaissance program is thriving. A hallmark of Newport is their focus on gender-specific youth care and the new East Coast facility will be no exception. Newport says it will treat youths 15-20 yrs-old in separate facilities on the 65 acre nature preserve campus, with capacity for 10 males and eight females.

Higher Barriers to Enrty

In an interview with Treatment Magazine CEO Jamison Monroe says that a “certificate of need” was required under Connecticut law to open the new treatment center, but that the process was smooth and not at all overly burdensome. “There was certainly a recognition amonst the regulators of the need for our type of care,” says Monroe, adding that the licensure and regulatory process was indeed extensive but not a barrier, especially since Newport was already CARF accredited and thus well prepared for an oversight type process. Generally speaking, East Coast addictions regulation has represented a higher barrier to entry for new addiction treatment facilities than in treatment “hubs” like South Florida, Arizona and Southern California. But in recent years, East Coast regulators may have come to recognize they might be losing out on significant economic growth benefits with so much of East Coast addiction treatment capacity residing in South Florida. Thus Northeast regulators seem to have become somewhat more accommodating with respect to addiction treatment startups, especially at the high-end. A classic example of the more forbearing regulator approach is the opening of The Dunes in a Hamptons, Long Island mansion smack in the middle of a key playground for New York City’s elite.

Newport’s West Coast

Newport Academy currently has residential facilities on the California Six-Bed Model for both females and males, as well as an outpatient center, all located about an hour’s drive south of Los Angeles. In addition, there is a a sober high school from which Monroe says about 25 youths have graduated in recent years, allowing for young people to continue their studies in a highly supportive continuing care envirmonment.

read our Special Report on venerable Silver Hill’s resurgence

read our story on The Dunes addictions center in the Hamptons

POST YOUR COMMENTS BELOW… start a debate!

Got Addiction News? …TELL US!