Astoria Pointe is a facility in Uniontown that operated as a drug and alcohol treatment center from 2005 to 2018. 

Astoria Pointe, a former drug and alcohol treatment center in Uniontown, could reopen early next year with inpatient services and a medical detox center.

Ellie Dooner, whose late husband Bill Dooner bought the former nursing home and opened Astoria Pointe in 2005, sold the Uniontown property for $1.6 million to Gevork “George” Boyadzhyan, who has operated treatment centers in the Southwestern U.S.

Dooner sold the Rosebriar, a sister facility to Astoria Pointe for women, to a local family for a bed-and-breakfast earlier this year. She is selling properties to fund an opioid addiction treatment center near Memphis, Tennessee.

Pacific Seafood eyed Astoria Pointe as a dormitory for seasonal workers before recently withdrawing the application.

Boyadzhyan said he plans to reopen a treatment center at Astoria Pointe within six months. He formed the company Virtue at the Pointe Recovery Center with Milt Parham, who was the chief operations officer at Astoria Pointe from 2008 until late 2011 and has worked for other recovery centers in the region.

“We’re going to open as a 40-bed, coed facility offering gender-specific treatment to men and women ages 18 and up,” Parham said. “We will be offering detox, as well as long-term residential treatment, long-term being 30 to 90 days.”

Virtue at the Pointe will treat regional patients from Portland to Seattle, with some community beds kept open for locals. Long-term treatment will be largely based around the 12-step program. Parham said he hopes to have the facility licensed and operating in January.

Like Astoria Pointe, the new treatment center will only take private insurance.

Providing detox and inpatient drug and alcohol treatment has long been a challenge in the region.

Astoria Pointe was the only inpatient drug and alcohol treatment center in Clatsop County when the operator, Sunspire Health, closed the doors in the summer of 2018 without explanation. Dooner pointed to insurers not providing enough money for the long-term treatment necessary to keep people from relapsing.

“The insurance companies were not doing what they did in the past,” she said in August. “And if you do not have the insurance companies on your team, you’re paying high dollars to the therapist. You better have the money coming in from someplace.”

In late 2018, Klean Treatment Center closed an inpatient treatment center in Long Beach, Washington, along with outpatient services in Astoria.

“When Klean across the river closed, and when Astoria Pointe closed, we essentially lost about 120 beds,” Parham said. “And it really devastated the recovery community in Astoria, which was vibrant.”

Parham worked with Klean Treatment Center in Long Beach. He was hired by Willapa Behavioral Health to help start a 54-bed inpatient treatment center with a detox wing scheduled to open this fall in the former Klean building. But the center has not opened because of issues with financing, Parham said, and he left the agency on amicable terms to focus on starting the treatment center in Astoria.

Parham blamed Klean’s troubles on the wasteful largesse of executives, arguing that the Long Beach inpatient center was profitable until its closure. Astoria Pointe also turned a profit, he said, but not enough for Sunspire Health.

Virtue at the Pointe will seek accreditation from the Joint Commission, a nonprofit accreditor of more than 22,000 U.S. health care organizations and programs. The accreditation is more focused on high-quality treatment and financial accountability that will make insurance companies more cooperative with longer-term treatment, Parham said.

A major part of Virtue at the Pointe’s effectiveness will be creating strong discharge plans for people leaving treatment who need sober living quarters, outpatient treatment and other support to prevent relapse, he said.

“The revolving door as a marketing plan is not an option,” Parham said.

“If we have to admit the patient more than twice, then we shouldn’t be admitting the patient. We should be sending them somewhere else, because their needs aren’t being met.”