WARNING –
Oct. 10, 2023 – Collectively, RCM is licensed to operate 163 beds for men and women with substance use disorders. Its existing services in western Montana are certified by the state as 3.5 level facilities — a type of licensure between outpatient treatment and intensive hospitalization based on a scale created by the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
The future of those beds, which addiction experts say fill a critical role in Montana’s addiction recovery landscape, is now unclear. RCM co-founder and co-CEO Jim Driscoll confirmed to Montana Free Press in early October that none of the organization’s facilities are currently allowed to accept patients, a restriction that Driscoll said the state implemented shortly after the Sept. 16 death of a man at the Clinton facility, which has been in operation since January 2023.
A death certificate listing the patient’s cause of death was not complete and available Tuesday morning. MTFP is not naming the patient to protect his family’s privacy. In the aftermath of the death, Driscoll said, the company opted to transfer or discharge the remaining Clinton facility residents, a decision he said state inspectors with the Department of Public Health and Human Services supported. The other two licensed facilities remain open.
