Behavioral health care in Massachusetts remains under significant strain, particularly for individuals whose needs fall between routine outpatient therapy and inpatient or residential treatment. The 2026 Behavioral Health in Massachusetts dashboard, published by the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA), identifies ongoing concerns related to access, affordability, emergency department utilization, quality of follow-up care, and equity (Center for Health Information and Analysis [CHIA], 2026). These findings suggest that Massachusetts does not simply need more behavioral health services in a general sense; it needs clinically appropriate levels of care that can respond to complex mental health and substance use needs before those needs escalate into crisis. Partial Hospitalization Programs (PHPs) and Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOPs) are well-positioned to address this gap because they provide structured, intensive treatment while allowing clients to remain connected to their homes, families, schools, work, and communities.
New England Medical Group (NEMG), with PHP/IOP locations in Milford and Norwell, is well-positioned to address several behavioral health gaps identified in the CHIA dashboard. NEMG is in network with most major insurance carriers, which directly matters in a state where cost remains a barrier to needed behavioral health treatment. More importantly, NEMG offers an integrated milieu model that treats mental health and addiction together, rather than separating substance use symptoms from the emotional and psychiatric issues that often underlie them. This model reflects a whole-person approach to care: substance use is not treated only as a behavior to stop, but as part of a broader clinical picture that may include depression, anxiety, trauma, grief, shame, family conflict, emotional dysregulation, and impaired functioning. In this way, NEMG’s PHP/IOP services can respond to the actual complexity of client needs rather than offering fragmented or symptom-only treatment.
CHIA’s dashboard demonstrates that behavioral health needs remain substantial across Massachusetts. In 2025, 8.7% of family behavioral health needs and 5.4% of individual behavioral health needs went unmet because of cost (CHIA, 2026). The dashboard also found that behavioral health emergency department visits at acute care hospitals declined from 1,725 to 1,635 per 100,000 Massachusetts residents from 2024 to 2025. However, the continued rate of emergency department use still reflects a system in which many individuals access behavioral health care only after symptoms have become acute (CHIA, 2026). PHP and IOP services can help reduce this overreliance on emergency settings by providing a step-up level of care for clients who are deteriorating in outpatient treatment and a step-down level of care for clients leaving inpatient, residential, or emergency services.
Recent research supports the clinical value of PHP and IOP levels of care within the behavioral health continuum. Marcus et al. (2025) found that adolescent PHP services were associated with improvements in interpersonal functioning, intrapersonal distress, suicidal ideation, and self-injurious behavior. They described PHP as a clinically useful step-up and step-down level of care. Similarly, Siciliano et al. (2025) found that adolescents receiving PHP care showed improvement in anxiety and depression symptoms, including among adolescents with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. These findings are directly relevant to the Massachusetts treatment gap because they support the idea that PHP care can stabilize clients who need more support than weekly outpatient therapy but do not necessarily require 24-hour care.
The PHP/IOP model is also valuable because it addresses functioning, not only diagnosis. Many clients seeking behavioral health care are not just experiencing symptoms; they are struggling to attend school, maintain employment, manage family relationships, remain sober, regulate emotions, and complete daily responsibilities. PHP and IOP programs can provide multiple therapeutic contacts per week, group therapy, individual support, family involvement, psychiatric consultation, relapse prevention, psychoeducation, crisis planning, and coordination with outside providers. This level of structure allows the treatment team to assess patterns over time and intervene more quickly than would usually be possible in traditional outpatient therapy. For clients with co-occurring mental health and substance use concerns, this intensity can be especially important because symptoms often interact and escalate together.
NEMG’s integrated milieu model is particularly important in the treatment of co-occurring disorders. Research consistently shows that mental health and substance use concerns frequently overlap and that treatment models are more clinically responsive when they address both conditions together. Yule and Kelly (2019) argued that integrated treatment is essential when substance use and mental health conditions co-occur because treating only one condition can leave the other untreated and can undermine recovery. Iqbal et al. (2019) similarly emphasized that treatment for substance use disorder must account for common co-occurring psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. McGinty et al. (2020) also noted that integrated models of mental health and addiction treatment have been shown to improve patient outcomes. However, they require adequate structure, workforce capacity, and payment systems to be implemented effectively.
This evidence supports the argument that substance use disorder-specific facilities may be limited when they focus mainly on symptom control without adequately addressing the underlying emotional and psychiatric drivers of substance use. Symptom-focused substance use treatment can be helpful for immediate stabilization, relapse prevention, and accountability. Still, it may not be sufficient for clients whose substance use is connected to trauma, depression, anxiety, emotional avoidance, shame, or relational instability. An integrated PHP/IOP model allows clients to address both the behavior and the reason the behavior became clinically meaningful. This distinction matters. If treatment only asks, “How do we stop the substance use?” it may miss the more important clinical question: “What pain, impairment, or unmet need has the substance use been managing?” NEMG’s model is better suited to answer both questions.
The American Counseling Association’s ethical standards also support an integrated approach to treatment. The ACA Code of Ethics states that counselors' primary responsibility is to respect client dignity and promote client welfare (American Counseling Association [ACA], 2014, Standard A.1.a.). This ethical obligation requires counselors and treatment programs to respond to the full scope of client need, not only to the most visible symptom. The ACA Code also states that counseling plans should be developed collaboratively and should offer a reasonable promise of success while remaining consistent with the client’s abilities, circumstances, and developmental level (ACA, 2014, Standard A. 1. c.). For clients with co-occurring mental health and substance use concerns, an integrated treatment plan is more likely to meet this ethical standard than a fragmented plan that treats addiction separately from mental health.
The ACA Code of Ethics further supports interdisciplinary and coordinated care. Counselors are expected to establish positive collaborative relationships with other professionals when clients are served by multiple providers (ACA, 2014, Standard A.3.). Counselors working on interdisciplinary teams are also expected to remain focused on how best to serve clients and contribute to decisions affecting client well-being (ACA, 2014, Standard D.1.c.). These standards are directly aligned with PHP/IOP work, where clients may need coordinated support from clinicians, psychiatric providers, case managers, family members, schools, outpatient therapists, primary care providers, and recovery supports. Ethical treatment is not isolated treatment; it is coordinated treatment that recognizes the complexity of the person being served.
Assessment and diagnosis standards also support NEMG’s integrated approach. The ACA Code of Ethics states that counselors must take special care to provide proper diagnosis and carefully select assessment techniques used to determine the level of care, the type of treatment, and the recommended follow-up (ACA, 2014, Standard E.5.a.). This is especially relevant for clients whose substance use may mask, worsen, or be worsened by underlying psychiatric symptoms. For example, a client presenting with alcohol misuse may also have untreated panic disorder, trauma symptoms, or major depression. A client presenting with cannabis use may also be using substances to manage social anxiety, grief, or emotional dysregulation. Proper assessment requires attention to the whole clinical picture. An integrated PHP/IOP model framework provides a structure for assessing and treating these overlapping issues together.
NEMG’s in-network status with most major carriers also helps address the affordability gap documented by CHIA. Insurance access does not eliminate all barriers, but it makes intensive treatment more reachable for many families than private-pay or out-of-network services. This is especially important because CHIA found ongoing inequities in unmet behavioral health needs due to cost. In 2025, 16.5% of multiracial or race-not-listed resident families reported not receiving needed behavioral health care due to cost, which was 8.8 percentage points higher than the rate among Massachusetts residents overall (CHIA, 2026). Programs that accept major insurance carriers and offer intensive treatment in multiple geographic areas can play a meaningful role in reducing access barriers. NEMG’s Milford and Norwell locations enable the organization to serve different regions of Massachusetts while offering a level of care that is more intensive than outpatient therapy and less restrictive than inpatient or residential treatment.
The group-based milieu is another important feature of PHP/IOP care. Group treatment allows clients to practice emotional expression, receive feedback, build accountability, and reduce isolation. Marmarosh (2022) noted that group psychotherapy has strong clinical utility and can be comparable to individual therapy for many mental health concerns, including anxiety and depression. In PHP/IOP settings, the group milieu can also help clients identify interpersonal patterns as they occur, rather than only discussing them after the fact in individual therapy. This is especially valuable for clients whose mental health or substance use symptoms are connected to shame, avoidance, family dynamics, loneliness, or difficulty tolerating vulnerability.
In conclusion, the CHIA 2026 Behavioral Health Dashboard identifies meaningful gaps in the Massachusetts behavioral health system, including unmet needs due to cost, continued emergency department utilization, access disparities, and the need for effective post-discharge follow-up. NEMG’s PHP/IOP services are well-positioned to address these gaps because they offer intensive, accessible, insurance-based treatment at a clinically necessary middle level of care. With locations in Milford and Norwell, in-network relationships with most major carriers, and an integrated milieu model that treats mental health and addiction together, NEMG offers a strong response to the current behavioral health landscape. The ethical and clinical argument is clear: clients deserve treatment that addresses the whole person, not only the presenting symptom. Integrated PHP/IOP care is therefore not just a practical service model; it is an ethically sound and clinically appropriate way to meet the complex behavioral health needs of individuals and families in Massachusetts.
American Counseling Association. (2014). ACA code of ethics. https://www.counseling.org/resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf
Center for Health Information and Analysis. (2026). Behavioral health in Massachusetts: Behavioral health dashboard. https://www.chiamass.gov/assets/docs/r/pubs/2026/Behavioral-Health-Care-Dashboard-2026.pdf
Iqbal, M. N., Levin, C. J., & Levin, F. R. (2019). Treatment for substance use disorder with co-occurring mental illness. Focus: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry, 17(2), 88–97. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20180042
Marcus, M. D., May, E. M., Beaudoin, G. B., Frazier, E. A., & Hedrick, M. A. (2025). The impact of the pathway of care on treatment outcomes in adolescent partial hospitalization programs. Child & Youth Care Forum, 54, 1909–1925. https://doi.org/10.1177/10634266241311559
Marmarosh, C. L. (2022). New horizons in group psychotherapy research and practice from third wave positive psychology: A practice-friendly review. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 78(7), 1247–1260. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23330
McGinty, E. E., Daumit, G. L., & Goldman, H. H. (2020). Integrating mental health and addiction treatment into general medical care: The role of policy. JAMA Psychiatry, 77(11), 1163–1164. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.1208
Siciliano, R. E., Ayers, A. M., & Spirito, A. (2025). Anxiety and depression symptoms improve in partial hospitalization treatment for adolescents with suicidal thoughts and behaviors and repeated admissions. Evidence-Based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 10(2), 197–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/23794925.2024.2358494
Yule, A. M., & Kelly, J. F. (2019). Integrating treatment for co-occurring mental health conditions. Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, 40(1), Article 07. https://doi.org/10.35946/arcr.v40.1.07
Andrew Lapin, M.S.,M.A., LMHC, serves as the Vice President of Clinical Services for New England Medical Group, where he provides clinical leadership across behavioral health programming, supervision, treatment development, and quality of care initiatives. With more than 15 years of experience in human services and mental health care, Andrew brings a clinically grounded and systems-focused approach to building programs that are ethical, effective, and responsive to the needs of clients and families.
Andrew’s clinical philosophy is rooted in the belief that lasting healing requires more than symptom management. His work emphasizes addressing the core issues of trauma, attachment, emotional pain, and relational disruption that often underlie addiction, maladaptive coping, and behavioral health challenges. He is committed to integrated, evidence-based treatment that helps clients understand the function of their symptoms while developing healthier, more sustainable ways of relating to themselves and others.
Andrew is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and is currently pursuing doctoral study in Counselor Education and Supervision, further strengthening his work as a clinician, supervisor, educator, and behavioral health leader
