RAISING THE BAR: Behavioral health provider significantly grows capacity with new Marne campus

David and Rae Green started Sanford Behavioral Health seven years ago in a historic home in the Heritage Hill neighborhood of Grand Rapids.

The site housed a 10-bed women’s detox unit. In the early days, David mowed the lawn and did the shopping. He also occasionally cooked.

From a small beginning, Sanford Behavioral Health has grown steadily. The company most recently developed a new 18-acre campus in rural Marne, in northeast Ottawa County. The new 134-bed Sanford West location offers a detoxification center, treatment for substance use and eating disorders, and mental health services.

The Marne campus is the newest and largest location for Sanford Behavioral Health, which currently employs 75 people and has five inpatient and outpatient facilities in the Grand Rapids area that treat people with addictions, eating disorders, and mental health problems. of mental health.

“It’s the story of a family business, and my daughter has been in the business and my son has been in the business the whole time. We started out that way and over that short period of time we’ve grown into a pretty big company,” said David Green, CEO of Sandford, in an interview at the Sanford West campus, located a short distance north of I- 96 at 16th Ave.

Sanford Behavioral Health purchased the former nursing home in July 2020. The Marne campus added residential treatment for eating disorders and substance use disorders, more than tripling Sanford’s capacity. The campus began opening in phases this summer, beginning with the detox center and treatment for eating disorders. All of the programs will open in the coming months, Green said.

‘Raise the bar on treatment’

The Greens began planning for the Marne campus before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased incidence rates of substance use and mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.

“The need for addiction, eating disorder and mental health treatment in Michigan is dire, and medical experts say the COVID-19 pandemic has made people’s mental health problems worse,” said Rae Green, president and founder of Sanford Behavioral Health. “The data shows that Michiganders are not receiving treatment or are leaving the state only to find the support and treatment they need due to a severe shortage of effective treatment providers. So we’re raising the bar for treatment in Michigan with this facility.”

In addition, the location gives Sanford Behavioral Health room to expand its services in the Marne. The site offered the company real estate “that fits our financial model” in close proximity to Grand Rapids, David Green said.

Prior to Sanford Behavioral Health, David Green spent 18 years as an executive at DP Fox Ventures and previously as an attorney at Warner Norcross + Judd LLP. Rae Green has experience working in residential treatment centers and is an advanced drug and alcohol counselor.

“Her clinical experience, along with my real estate and business experience, made for a pretty good formula,” said David Green.

After forming the women’s detox center, Sanford House on Cherry Street, in 2015, “one thing led to another” and additional locations and services followed, she said.

The Greens saw the development of a new campus as an opportunity to expand their company’s offerings beyond substance use disorder and into eating disorders and to treat people with multiple diagnoses.

Coming out of the pandemic, many patients’ conditions are “much more acute with many concurrent conditions,” said David Green. More than 80 percent of Sanford Behavioral Health patients have a co-diagnosis. Patients, for example, have a substance use disorder and an eating disorder, or gastrointestinal problems from their alcoholism, he said.

Adding the Marne campus to the existing 30 residential beds between two facilities in Grand Rapids gives the company significantly more capacity and scale that “has allowed us to build a substantial medical team” to address medical and psychiatric issues that may have the patients, David Green said.

“Gaining scale also allows us to raise the level of our treatment, particularly on the clinical and medical side of things,” he said. “Now we can address those physical and medical issues while those patients are with us, instead of referring them.”

Looking to the future, Sanford Behavioral Health intends to grow even more, add more services and expand into new markets. Half of the company’s patients come from East Lansing, creating the potential for later expansion into Eastern Michigan and the Detroit area.

In addition, Sanford Behavioral Health has met with major providers in West Michigan to discuss potential partnerships and with providers nationally to network “about some form of future collaboration,” David Green said.

While the company has no specific expansion plans, its strategy is to enter new markets where there is a gap in behavioral health care services, he said.

“My motto has always been: I am not going to enter an area that is already served with effective and quality treatment. We would look to get into spaces that are underserved or not up to the Sanford standard,” she said. “I don’t have anything in the books, but I have a lot rolling around in my mind.

“There are a lot of opportunities in the Detroit area, but obviously we have our plate full here to open up these programs and get things done.”