photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The drug treatment center operated by BHG at 19th Street and Haskell Avenue is pictured on June 26, 2023.

An opioid addiction treatment center in Lawrence has filed plans to expand, and it hopes to become more convenient for people who need its help.

Behavioral Health Group has filed plans at City Hall to expand the services it offers at its clinic in the shopping center at 19th Street and Haskell Avenue.

While the center initially doesn’t expect to grow its physical space at the eastern Lawrence shopping center, it does hope to significantly expand the way it can treat patients there. Currently, patients often have to come to the Lawrence center multiple days per week, sometimes for a year or more, to receive treatments of methadone or other similar medication designed to blunt the effects of opioid withdrawal.

While that service will continue to be offered, the Lawrence location hopes to begin offering a more outpatient-oriented service option. Myra Del Campo, a licensing specialist with the Behavioral Health Group, told me in a brief interview that the center hopes to add what the industry calls “office based opioid treatment.”

Despite what the name implies, the treatment option actually would require patients spending less time at the clinic at 19th and Haskell. The new treatment option would allow a medical professional at the clinic to see a patient and then prescribe for the patient a different type of medication that can be taken at the patient’s home.

Opioid treatment centers have been adding the more outpatient-based option in recent years as changes in federal regulations have emerged.

Del Campo said it was hard to predict when the Lawrence center would begin offering the new treatment service. She said the center would be prepared to begin the new service once it received the necessary planning approvals from Lawrence City Hall.

Even though the project isn’t producing new construction or a physical expansion, the new treatment type is considered a different type of use for the property under the city’s development code. That type of use requires a special use permit, which the center has applied for.

Special use permits can take a couple of months to win approval through the Planning Commission and City Commission process, so the new treatment option is probably several weeks away, at the earliest.

The project, though, does serve as a useful reminder about the existence of the substance abuse clinic. While it may look like a fairly small operation, it actually is part of a large national group.

Behavioral Health Group — or BHG, as it brands itself — says it operates the largest network of Joint Commission Accredited treatment centers in the country. Its website says it treated nearly 70,000 people in the last year through its network.

According to its website, the company operates about 115 clinics in 21 states and the District of Columbia.

BHG operates three treatment centers in Kansas, with locations in Kansas City and Overland Park, according to its website. It also has seven locations in Missouri, including in Kansas City, Joplin, Springfield and elsewhere.