| SPRINGFIELD — Citing operating losses, Baystate Medical Center will soon transfer its substance-abuse programs to Behavioral Health Network (BHN), a regional provider of mental-health and drug and alcohol treatment services based in Springfield.
Baystate officials say the health system lost more than $1 million annually operating substance-abuse programs because its costs are greater than reimbursements.
“The community-based model for providing outpatient and residential substance abuse services is more cost-effective and sustainable than providing care in a hospital-based model,” noted Amanda Tirrell, vice president of Neurosciences, Behavioral Health, Rehabilitation and Cancer Care at Baystate.
The decision affects 58 full- and part-time employees of the Baystate programs, but BHN intends to offer them positions within its network.
“It is the goal of BHN to seamlessly transition these programs so that services are not interrupted,” said Katherine Wilson, president and CEO of Behavioral Health Network. “Continuation of client services is paramount. Therefore, we intend to notify BMC staff immediately of our goal to offer employment to program staff so they can remain in their present programs.”
The transition of the treatment programs from Baystate to Behavioral Health Network is expected to take about four months to complete and will be overseen by the state Department of Public Health.
The Behavioral Health Network presently operates several substance abuse clinics throughout Western Mass.; a crisis-response team and a crisis-stabilization unit; the Hope Center, a 30 bed program for individuals who have been discharged from area detox services and need continued treatment; and many other community services.
This move follows the announcement in September that 51 workers at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield would lose their jobs in December due to closings of behavioral-health services that produced an operating loss of $1.6 million last year, again because of inadequate reimbursements. The hospital was attempting to move the programs to ServiceNet. |
