“A majority of substance abuse rehabilitation programs have become little more than holding or drying out tanks with a little bit of education thrown in. The institutionalized ‘outing’ of addicts further isolates them and keeps them from seeking the care that is available to them and the care that they need. Addicts are in peril if they don’t seek help and damned if they do! What a situation for any human being to be in!"

The challenge facing our nation is threefold:

• To continue cutting edge research to understand and address the disease of addiction.
• To replicate the success of the best programs in significantly larger numbers.
• To take the best of the best programs and then make the best even better.
• - C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General (Retired)

The advent of Managed Care impaired the ability of substance abuse rehabilitation programs in the United States to deliver quality treatment, creating a precipitous drop in success rates and soaring recidivism. The goal of Managed Care was to substantially reduce costs, and it was achieved by shortening treatment programs and eliminating the “expensive” components of psychological counseling and therapy.

The cost-cutting “medical model” was developed at the direction of insurance companies with the help of financial and data services providers. Unfortunately the shared data banks required by this system created another obstacle for those seeking treatment because they caused a universal compromise in patient confidentiality and imposed additional financial and social penalties on addicted individuals. The result was an enormous decline in the quality of treatment, and a corresponding increase in relapse rates.

During the 1990’s only four residential treatment centers maintained premium services refusing to allow managed care to dictate their treatment structure and fees. Today that number has grown to 22 in response to the problem and increased demand for “services that actually work.” Managed Care funding is virtually absent in this essentially private-pay system.

Even these premier residential treatment centers are limited in what they are able to accomplish. They can effectively restore biological stability, but do not have adequate resources, such as time and money, to effectively address the psychological and social aspects of the disorder. Stabilization, recovery, reintegration and growth cannot be accomplished in a four to six week residential treatment program.

We work with the best of the residential treatment centers to restore biological stability. We then address the psychological and social aspects of the disorder by coaching, guiding, and supporting our clients in their workplace, community, and homes.

Answering C. Everett Koop’s challenge, Turning Point For Leaders has taken the best of the best programs and made them even better.