CRH plans new substance abuse treatment center

Columbus Regional Health Vice President of Community Partnerships and Columbus Regional Health Foundation President Julie Abedian, center, discusses the new Treatment and Support Center that will open in July with the help of a large donation from the health system's foundation Thursday, May 30, 2019. Also pictured is Cheryl Buffo and CRH CEO Jim Bickel. (Andrew Laker | CRH)

The Columbus Regional Health Foundation will provide $2.1 million in funding to start a behavioral health clinic aimed at treating substance abuse disorders on an outpatient basis in Columbus.

The new 5,208-square-foot facility, called the Columbus Regional Health Treatment and Support Center, or TASC, will offer medication-assisted treatment, intensive outpatient treatment and other services for people who are struggling with substance abuse, including the abuse of alcohol, opioids, methamphetamine, cocaine and other substances.

The facility will contain three group rooms, each with a capacity of around 12 people, and four individual treatment rooms. It will be located at 2630 22nd St. in the former Southern Indiana Gastroenterology building, which is the process of being renovated to house the new facility. Currently, the new center is scheduled to open July 1.

The $2.1 million in funding from the foundation, which CRH officials said was the largest one-time grant the foundation has ever issued, will be used to cover costs associated with the purchase and renovation of the property, as well as start-up expenses until the center becomes financially self-sustaining.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery

Columbus Regional Health Physicians LLC purchased the property in March from Ottawa Holdings LLC for $600,000, according to property transfer records.

“This is a key new service that CRH has never had in its specialty practices,” said Julie Abedian, vice president of corporate partnerships at CRH and Columbus Regional Health Foundation president. “CRH has never had addiction treatment as a specialty practice before. This is new and exciting.”

CRH officials estimate that the facility will serve around 126 unique patients during the first year and increase to nearly 600 unique patients by the fifth year of operations, said Cheryl Buffo, community programs lead for the Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress, or ASAP. Initially, the facility will have nine staff members, including a physician, licensed addiction therapist, case manager, intake coordinator, medical assistant and two peer recovery coaches, among other staff members.

Abedian said the facility will heavily focus on behavioral health and family support services. One treatment in particular that will be available at the clinic will be medication-assisted treatment, which combines medications that reduce cravings with different forms of behavioral therapy to treat substance use disorders.

“Really where the magic happens is when you can use medicine to reduce people’s cravings so they can start to address in groups and in one-on-one counseling all the behaviors that led them to start using and abusing drugs,” Abedian said. “That’s really where people make progress is when they can get to root of why they started using in the first place.”

The idea behind providing family support services at the center is to help family members cope with and handle another family member’s substance abuse disorder, said Columbus Regional Health President and CEO Jim Bickel.

“This treatment center is trying to not only deal with the person afflicted with addiction, but also deal with the support system around them,” Bickel said. “It can be very scary for the family members to try to figure out what’s the right way to support someone dealing with addiction. There’s a lot of different approaches and thinking about how to do that, and this treatment center will provide that support … Traditionally, addiction was a tough topic to talk about, and I think at times it can be a very lonely place to be as a family member. People have different ways they deal with that. We’re trying to make sure we got that support system in place.”

The facility will only provide outpatient services and will be available to people in CRH’s service area, which includes Bartholomew, Brown, Decatur, Jackson, Jefferson, Jennings, Johnson, Ripley, Scott and Shelby counties.

“(Substance abuse) is a community issue,” Bickel said. “It’s not just a health system issue. It’s not just a law enforcement issue or a judicial issue. It spans across the community.”