[A] Massachusetts-based investment firm last month acquired the company that operates three of Vermont’s opiate treatment centers.
Webster Capital LLC acquired an 80 percent interest in Addiction Research & Treatment Inc., the parent company of BAART Behavioral Health Services Inc.
BAART, a company based in San Francisco, operates 22 drug treatment clinics around the country. In Vermont, the company runs the clinics in Newport and St. Johnsbury, and operates the Berlin clinic in partnership with the nonprofit Central Vermont Substance Abuse Services.
Seven treatment hubs provide intensive outpatient services for opiate addiction throughout Vermont; the clinics are part of a hub-and-spoke model through which patients graduate to less intensive community-based treatment.
Barbara Cimaglio, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health, said that the acquisition has had no impact on the services offered at the treatment hubs, and she does not anticipate any change in the future.
The department was notified of the acquisition, Cimaglio said, and was told the acquisition would not have any impact on the day-to-day operation of the clinics.
“This is all happening above the people running programs in Vermont,” Cimaglio said in a phone interview Thursday. “We really have not been directly affected.”
David Malm, co-managing partner at Webster Capital, declined to speak about the financial details or other aspects of the acquisition in an email Thursday.
Dr. Jason Kletter, president of BAART, said that he expects the acquisition of the company by Webster Capital will provide treatment centers opportunities to improve their services. The new financial backing will allow the company to address capacity issues that have led to treatment waitlists, he said.
“We need capital in order to find new locations and build them out,” Kletter said.
BAART has been family owned since it was founded by Kletter’s parents in 1977. Kletter now runs the company with his siblings. He said he is confident that the financial backing by Webster Capital, along with the investment firm’s experience with building other health care organizations, will be successful.
Vermont’s relationship with BAART dates back to 2004, when the state first put out a request for proposals for opiate treatment services in the Northeast Kingdom, Cimaglio said.
After going through a bidding process, the state selected BAART to establish methadone treatment, she said. When the state moved to expand treatment options, BAART expanded its service in Vermont.
Some of Vermont’s opiate treatment centers are run by local nonprofits, like the clinic in Chittenden County, which is operated by the Howard Center, and the clinic in Rutland.
A for-profit company also runs the methadone clinic in Brattleboro. That clinic was one of 22 clinics in the Northeast purchased in February last year by Bain Capital, a Boston-based firm run by 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
There has been some debate at a national level about the quality of services at for-profit clinics compared with not-for-profit clinics. Kletter said that for-profit companies often have more resources to provide better service than nonprofits.
“I think what we ought to be looking at is the quality of care people get and the outcomes,” Kletter said, noting that BAART clinics have good results when it comes to reducing patients’ drug use. “The organization’s tax status is sort of irrelevant.”
