HEADLINE: DRUG THERAPY BUSINESS BOOMS
BYLINE: Laura Gardner, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: November 10, 1986, Monday;
Page A-1 (ill.) (37 in.) SECTION: NEWS
TEXT:
Ten years ago, Phil Henricks was incapable of holding down a job as a cook, so
clouded was his life with heroin, cocaine, pills, and whiskey.
Today, the former addict owns a business that
counsels teen-age drug abusers and their families. For a fee of between $5,000
and $7,000, Henricks coaxes and spars with clients through six months of
intensive, soul-wrenching therapy that promises to snuff out their addiction.
Outside the Ridgewood office of his firm, the
Furman Clinic, Henricks engages in another kind of battle. It is a fight for a
larger slice of the turf with a small, but growing, number of entrepreneurs who
have entered the drug treatment business.
While increased competition may lead to better care and wider availability of
programs, some experts worry that only those who can afford to pay will benefit,
leaving the poor and uninsured out in the cold.
Not
only do these new businesses vie for clients, they're competing with the
traditional providers of drug treatment --hospitals.
"The competition with the hospitals for our kind of
business is pretty fierce; that's just what business is all about," said Kathy
Stuckey, co=owner of Future Health Systems Inc., a two-year-old drug treatment
company that operates four programs in Bergen and Union counties.
These entrepreneurs aren't setting up shop just
anywhere. Affluent Bergen County is the backdrop for a number of success
stories.
Four private drug-counseling programs have
sprung up in the last three years. They treat almost 1,000 patients among them.
There are no private, for-profit treatment programs
in Passaic County. Experts believe that the programs have not caught on in
Passaic County because residents are generally less affluent than their Bergen
County neighbors.
Private drug treatment centers
owe much of their success to the growing numbers of middle-class families affected by drug abuse. And though insurance coverage
for drug treatment is still spotty, the programs are gaining acceptance among
insurers disillusioned with the high cost of hospital care.
For example, the average cost of eight weeks of
outpatient treatment at Future Health Systems in the Union County community of
Summit is $5,000. By contrast, eight weeks of inpatient treatment at Fair Oaks,
a private, for-profit psychiatric hospital also in Summit, costs almost $40,000.
Despite the healthy competition, the proliferation
of private drug treatment clinics could have some bad side effects. "What we
have is a healthy trend in that services are available, but there is a danger in
that people who don't have the capacity to pay may get lost in the shuffle,"
said Bob Bedell, Bergen County alcoholism coordinator.
About 4,000 New Jerseyans have been turned away
from publicly funded treatment programs because of overcrowding, said Richard
Russo, assistant commissioner of the N.J. Department of Health.
Largely uninsured and poor, these clients also are
not good candidates for treatment in private programs, which depend on a
"reservoir of paying clients," Russo said.
"Some of
those 4,000 are falling pretty far through the cracks," Russo said. "These
people are, by and large, the disenfranchised folks, " who are likely to end up
"back on the streets, in jail, the emergency room, or the morgue."
He said the capacity of drug treatment programs
statewide needs to double to meet current demand. About 7,000 people are now in
public drug and alcohol treatment programs in New Jersey.
Private for-profit and nonprofit programs spend
large sums of money on marketing their services, however, and contend they do
not turn away clients unable to pay. They claim to admit some people at nominal
or no charge.
Because they don't rely on public
funds, private programs "have to go out and drum up trade," said Russo.
Henricks, who a year ago started the for-profit
Furman Clinic in Ridgewood, has spent about $50,000 on marketing and public
relations. Henricks, who is a government-certified substance abuse counselor,
worked for a couple of years in public rehabilitation centers in the Midwest
before starting his own company. Future Health Systems has a marketing staff
of
five.
Despite their modern approach to marketing
-- which includes radio spots, glossy media kits, and the hiring of public
relations firms --several programs said they did not undertake market research
before putting out the welcome mat.
One such
clinic, Hackensack-based KIDS of Bergen, took no chances. Before deciding to
open its doors, KIDS conducted a marketing study to identify the best
communities for its business, said Miller Newton, founder and director.
Newton said the market survey helped locate KIDS in
an area where a large number of families live with "an emotional investment in
being a family." The program requires the whole family to participate in
recovery, he said.
Despite the proliferation of
private treatment programs, one drug treatment professional, Bill Hartigan,
predicted they will gradually vanish as large corporations take over.
"A lot of people came into the field and saw it as
something that they could make some money on, and as soon as they saw it wasn't
so easy, they left," said Hartigan, a vice-president of the Massachusetts-based
Mediplex Group. In April, Avon Products Inc. acquired the six-year-old firm for
just over $200 million.
Yet the lure of easy money
or easy success persists, said Newton. "We're seeing a whole bunch of new people
who are sudden experts, and that's scary."
Some
professionals express fears that competition for paying clients may lead some of
the wrong people into treatment.
"What could happen
is that the programs are overzealous in getting people who don't necessarily
need treatment," said Bedell.
But entrepreneurs in
local drug programs say they are doing well because people really need the
treatment.
And some firms are doing quite well.
Mrs. Stuckey and her husband, Robert, a
psychiatrist, say their personal investment of $700,000 to start Future Health
Systems has paid off in two years.
When it opened,
the company treated a handful of clients in the basement of a Paramus office
building. Today, between 600 and 700 clients receive treatment weekly at its
four branches. The Stuckeys declined to discuss financial figures, except to say
the company is operating at a profit.
The Furman
Clinic, which Henricks said he started with capital from investors who run similar programs in Minnesota,
should turn a profit by 1988, only three years after start-up, said Henricks.
Henricks charges locally competitive fees for
services --$62.50 an hour for individual therapy and $35 an hour for group
therapy --and has plans to expand to treat about 90 patients, three times the
number in treatment now.
All the private programs
in Bergen County subscribe to the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, which
urges addicts to accept a "higher power."
Counseling is usually intensive, particularly for adolescents. The programs
typically involve the whole family in treatment, and most offer many services,
including psychodrama and individual therapy.
(SIDEBAR, page a13)
Judge
a program by its philosophy and quality of staff.
Drug-treatment specialists advise consumers to shop around before choosing a
drug-counseling program. The panic that often prompts a family to seek treatment
before evaluating a program may spell trouble if the family later disagrees with
the program's philosophy.
Consumers should consult
their local health agencies for recommendations, and be cautious of individuals
whose charisma --not the success of the program itself --persuades the consumer.
"Go for a program, not a person," advises Olive
Jacob, a private consultant on alcoholism and substance abuse issues. "There are
a lot of good, private, for-profit programs, but it's much harder to keep tabs
on an individual."
At the core of a counseling
program's effectiveness is the quality of its staff. At the minimum, therapists
should have state certification as alcoholism or substance abuse counselors,
experts agree. Certification is not required by law.
Programs get higher marks from experts if they are
based on the philosophy of Alcoholics Anonymous, long considered a hallmark in
the field. The best programs also involve the entire family, not just the
addict.
One question is whether medications, such
as tranquilizers, are often prescribed during the recovery process. Many program
directors contend centers that routinely rely on drug therapy are not as
effective as those that promote abstinence from all drugs, except when such
therapy is absolutely necessary to control behavior or treat a medical disorder.
All licensed programs in New Jersey are required to
abide by a client bill of rights, a practice not necessarily followed by private
programs. All public programs are licensed by the state. Licenses are also
required of all residential-programs, public or private. Private, nonresidential
programs that do not dispense medicine do not have to be licensed.
Many experts advise consumers to steer clear of
programs that do not guarantee patients certain privileges, such as the right to
terminate treatment, to air grievances, or to speak to an attorney.
<END>
CORRECTION: CORRECTION -Future Health Systems Inc. of Summit
and Paramus charges about $5,000 for eight months of drug-abuse treatment, not
eight weeks, as reported last week. (PUBLISHED TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1986, page
a03, all editions)
CAPTIONS: Staff photo by Ed Hill -Former addict Phil
Henricks is a government-certified substance abuse counselor at the Furman
Clinic.
TERMS: DRUG. ABUSE. COUNSELING. BUSINESS
ORDER NUMBER: 1436113
NOTICE: Copyright 1986 Bergen Record Corp.