2nd Drug Rehab Exec Dies; Employees, Patients Left Scrambling For Answers

Chaos and uncertainty at the parent company of one of New Haven’s largest drug rehab clinics have left 160 workers burned by missed paychecks and patients hustling for new treatment options.

Retreat Behavioral Health’s facilities in three different states, including Connecticut, appear to be closed indefinitely — amidst a $17 million foreclosure lawsuit in Florida, and the second death of a company executive in less than a week.

That’s the latest with Retreat, which up until last week operated therapy-based drug rehab clinics in Florida, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, including an 80-bed in-patient center at 915 Ella T. Grasso Blvd. and an outpatient clinic at 1 Long Wharf.

As the Independent first reported, the in-patient center closed abruptly last Friday and the out-patient clinic on Long Wharf shuttered on Monday — both in the wake of the sudden death of Retreat’s CEO, Peter Schorr.

Schorr’s funeral took place Tuesday in Valhalla, N.Y. The medical examiner in Palm Beach County, Florida, where Schorr died, said exemptions stated in state public-records law prevents her from disclosing the cause of death; this March the legislature added an exemption to the law barring the release of autopsies in cases of suicide. Schorr’s family has asked people to direct donations made in his memory to suicide-prevention organizations. (UPDATE: West Palm Beach TV news station WPTV reported Thursday that local police confirmed that Schorr’s death was a suicide.)

Meanwhile, the Palm Beach County medical examiner’s office confirmed that Behavioral Health’s Scott Korogodsky died on Wednesday. Korogodsky is identified as chief administrative officer here and here. An employee at the Lancaster, Penn. Retreat facility said that Korogodsky had stepped into the role of interim CEO after last week’s death of Schorr. The West Palm Beach TV news station WPTV confirmed with local police that Korogodsky died by suicide.

In the immediate aftermath of the closures, local Retreat employees told the Independent that they didn’t receive their most recent paychecks, and had minimal notice that their sites would be closing and all of their patients would be discharged.

On Wednesday, the Independent spoke with five Retreat employees — including three who worked at the Ella T. Grasso Boulevard site, and one at a similar clinic in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Two states apart, those employees described the exact same scenes over the past week: missing paychecks last Thursday night and Friday morning; clinic-wide announcements on Friday that the company’s CEO had died and that corporate was struggling to make payroll; the same-day recognition that the clinics would have to close and that all of the patients would have to be discharged. (Watch this Fox 61 report for interviews with still more New Haven Retreat employees.)

A former patient at the Ella T. Grasso Boulevard facility who spoke with the Independent on Wednesday described the same scene, from a patient’s perspective. She described the ensuing chaos of hurriedly packing up one’s belongings, processing that one would be leaving treatment that very day, and then finding a new place to go.

Three Retreat employees who spoke to Independent said that, as of Wednesday afternoon, they’d been locked out of their Retreat email accounts.

Four of those employees and the patient all asked to remain anonymous for this story, out of concerns of having this experience hurt future job prospects or, from the patient’s perspective, being outed as struggling with serious alcohol addiction.

One New Haven Retreat employee willing to go on the record by name, Jackie James, who is the New Haven facility’s director of public relations, confirmed for the Independent how messy and uncertain the situation at Retreat remains.

“No one is responding from HR. No one is responding from headquarters,” James, a former alder and city small-business director, said Wednesday. (She is one of the three who reported getting locked out of the email system.)

“This is the time when we should come together as a community to support people that are truly in need of support and jobs. People have to take care of their families. It’s partly my responsibility to provide jobs when I can. Someone has to be willing to assist in this process until we get some clarity.” 

James has teamed up with the Chamber of Commerce to host a job fair for the 160 suddenly unemployed workers, including nurses, social workers, and nursing assistants. The fair, sponsored by the Greater New Haven Healthcare Collaborative, is scheduled for Tuesday from 2 to 5 p.m at an as-yet undetermined location. 

She also acknowledged what other anonymous Retreat employees worried about: that workers say they can’t even obtain unemployment benefits because they are not officially laid off.

“It’s fucked up,” said one former manager at Retreat’s Ella T. Grasso Boulevard facility. She described printing out a copy of this New Haven Independent article as proof of her sudden lack of a job as she applied this week for unemployment and food stamps.

“Put that in the paper,” she repeated. ​“It is Fucked. Up.”

Jarel Gallman, the New Haven site director, declined to comment for this story. He previously told the Independent that he decided to close the facility amid financial problems at the time of the CEO’s death and an inability to pay workers.

“The facility has an active license which has not been surrendered. The department is aware that all residents and outpatients have been discharged,” said state Department of Health spokesperson Chris Boyle.

State Department of Labor spokesperson Juliet Manalan recommended that the workers file for unemployment benefits ​“as soon as possible” via this web page despite not having received official layoff notices.

“They do not need a separation notice to file,” she told the Independent. The department also ​“urges employers to contact us if they are facing a downturn or layoffs — we have programs that may be able to help them retain their labor force (Shared Work), or, in the case of closures, we have a Rapid Response team that works with impacted employees and helps them file for benefits, access job training and career counseling, and start a job search. Some employers are required under federal law to file a WARN notice.”

Manalan also noted that employers must pay employees ​“on time for all hours worked.” She suggested that workers can file a complaint seeking unpaid wages through the Wage and Workplace Standards Division.

UPDATE: Manalan said Thursday that 27 Retreat employees have filed claims for nonpayment of wages.

Therapist: "How Is This Even Possible?"

“Everybody at Connecticut was blindsided.”

So said a therapist who worked for several years at Retreat’s in-patient drug rehab facility on the Boulevard.

The therapist, who asked to remain anonymous for this article, spoke on Wednesday about how he and his erstwhile colleagues are still processing the company’s abrupt closures of its two New Haven sites. 

“It definitely felt surreal. There was a lot of anxiety. A hundred thoughts went through my head in half a second.” He remembered asking himself last Friday as the Boulevard site was suddenly closing and every single patient was being discharged: ​“How is this even possible? Can they do this? Is this legal?”

The therapist said that Retreat’s in-patient facility on the Boulevard provided care for around 30 to 40 patients struggling with substance use disorders and related mental health challenges by the time of last Friday’s closure.

Patients attended a minimum of three group therapy sessions a day to focus on coping skills for how to handle anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other underlying issues related to their addiction. Those groups also focused on ​“recovery planning and relapse prevention planning,” he said, as well as identifying warning signs and triggers for relapse. Other groups encouraged patients to develop ​“a sense of purpose in life” on their road to recovery. He also said that some patients were on medicated-assisted treatment, under the supervision of a doctor, as part of their care at Retreat.

The therapist said that he first realized something was wrong last Friday when he didn’t receive his biweekly paycheck.

He remembered sitting through last Friday’s regular morning meeting with the site’s clinical director and up to 10 other staffers. The meeting went forward as usual, with the care providers talking about the work ahead for the day.

At the end of the meeting, he said, he asked the group if everyone knew that they hadn’t been paid that morning. He said some people knew, others were shocked.

That same afternoon, he said, he and colleagues found out that the company’s CEO, Peter Schorr, had died. One of his colleagues, in a bit of online sleuthing, found an article from early May about how Retreat was at risk of losing a Florida clinic to foreclosure because of a $17.2 million mortgage default by one of its lenders, Coal Capital.

The therapist read to the Independent from an email sent out at 2:32 p.m. Friday by Retreat’s chief regulatory officer, lamenting Schorr’s death, recognizing that the company hadn’t made payroll and needed to figure out how, and promising to stay in touch with answers to the many questions staff and patients might have.

There was, if not ​“outright panic, definitely high anxiety,” among staff when they heard the news about Schorr’s death, the therapist said. ​“It started going around that people were not going to come to work on the evening shift” at the Boulevard site because they hadn’t been paid.

The therapist said he was on a day shift, and got home at around 3:30 p.m. last Friday.

“There was still hope that there would be some resolution and things would continue” at the site, he said.

And then, at around 4:30 p.m. Friday, ​“they started discharging patients. Discharge after discharge after discharge.”

Based on the discharge notifications he received, some patients were released to family and friends, some to the West Haven VA, some to other hospitals. He was concerned by how little detail there was in these discharge documents about the aftercare plans for patients who he knew had been diagnosed with severe mental health issues and substance use disorders.

“It’s common knowledge that, if someone leaves before their full length of stay, it’s against medical advice,” he said. And these people were in a facility that provided in-patient care 24 – 7, for stays of up to 45 days.

The therapist said the last communication he’s received from Retreat was at 7:47 p.m. on Monday.

That communication, from the company’s chief administration officer, said Retreat was in the process of discharging all patients and closing its facilities for now, with the hope to reopen after a company ​“restructure.”

“In the meantime, we will provide appropriate letters regarding employment,” that email promised.

The therapist said he’s yet to receive an ​“appropriate letter” about his employment. In fact, he doesn’t know what his employment status is exactly. He hasn’t been laid off. But he has no sense of if or when he’ll be paid again or be able to go back to work.

“I can’t wait” to find out, he said. He said he and most of his colleagues are now looking for new jobs.

“I’m not at the point of acceptance, that’s for sure,” he continued. ​“I’m going back and forth between being angry and sad about the whole thing.”

Employees: "We're Living Paycheck To Paycheck"

Two other Retreat employees, who also worked at the Boulevard site and who also asked to remain anonymous, visited the now-shuttered in-patient clinic to clean out their desks and pick up the last of their belongings on Wednesday.

They both said they first learned that something was wrong when they weren’t paid last Friday.

“There wasn’t no money in our accounts,” one said. Someone was up.

Every time she asked management for answers, the second employee said, ​“they were prolonging,” saying they’d have an answer in a few hours. ​“Then hours and hours went by.”

They said they received an email at around 2:30 — just like the therapist said — letting employees know that the company’s CEO had passed away. Everyone was concerned. How was this tragic news connected to making payroll?

“It was hectic. Very hectic,” one of the employees said last Friday, as all of the site’s patients were discharged and remaining staff rushed to find safe places for them to go. 

Meanwhile, the employees had — and still have — no idea if and when they’ll ever get paid for their last few weeks of work. ​“We’re living paycheck to paycheck,” one said.

Still another Retreat employee, named Aaron, described for the Independent a similarly abrupt and frustrating and question-laden closing of the in-patient clinic where he and his wife work in Lancaster County, Penn.

He said his wife wasn’t paid last Thursday night, when she was supposed to. That was a red flag. Then he wasn’t paid on Friday.

“Our facility has a strong reputation for” over the past 15 years of helping people struggling with addiction, he said. That’s why he and his wife wanted to work there in the first place. ​“We’ve both been on the other side of the coin, as patients.” They wanted to give back.

And, like every other Retreat employee the Independent has spoke with, they said it was genuinely a great place to work. The employees cared deeply about the patients. The patients were there earnestly seeking care and a way to improve their lives.

So, when they weren’t paid last week, they were concerned. When corporate told them it was a ​“technical issue,” they were dubious. And when they found out that the CEO had died and Retreat’s sites were closing, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, they were devastated — and angry.

“At the end of the day, there was a lot of mismanagement,” Aaron said. He doesn’t know how his family’s going to make rent next month given that both he and his wife are now apparently out of work. And they haven’t been able to apply for unemployment, because they haven’t been formally laid off.

Aaron said that the Lancaster facility discharged its last patient on Tuesday at 1 p.m. He said the patient was discharged to a homeless shelter, because she had nowhere else to go.

Patient: "It's Hard When You're Cut Loose"

It’s not just Retreat’s employees who are reeling from whatever has happened to the company over the past week.

A patient at the Ella T. Grasso Boulevard location, a woman in her mid-30s who also asked to remain anonymous for this story, said that it has been uniquely stressful for her and fellow patients as they were essentially rushed out of treatment with minimal support.

This patient said she was admitted to Retreat’s Boulevard facility on June 4 for treatment for alcohol abuse. She was scheduled for a 28-day stay. Last Friday was Day 18.

Fortunately, she had already finished her two-week medicated detox. But she was still planning on staying another two weeks for therapy.

She said last Friday began like any other day from her perspective as a patient: she had a morning group session from 8:45 to 11:45, then lunch, then afternoon group from 1:15 to 2:30, then a break.

At 4 p.m., she said, right before dinner time, all of the patients from the north and south sides of the campus were brought into the cafeteria. That’s when the site’s clinical director and another administrator announced that the CEO had died.

They also said that none of the staff had been paid, that there weren’t enough staff to continue providing treatment, and that ​“we need to discharge everyone” by the following day.

“Everyone who needs to talk about discharge, raise your hand,” she recalled the administrators saying. She said everyone in the room raised their hand — as they all needed help figuring out where to go next.

“At that point, everyone just started running around, trying to contact their families, starting the packing process,” she said. ​“There were therapists just walking around the hallway, stopping you and saying, ​‘Ok, what’s your plan for after you leave here?’ ”

This patient said her plan had been to go to Retreat’s outpatient clinic on Long Wharf. But that clearly wasn’t going to be an option. So she said she’d try to find care on her own. She told them she’d be going to her home in West Haven. She said the therapists signed off on that plan, returned the valuables she had checked at the beginning of her stay — like her phone and wallet and keys — and gave her a suitcase that someone else had left behind in the basement, as no one could find the luggage she came with.

She said she shoved three weeks’ worth of clothing into that suitcase, called an Uber, and took the Uber home to West Haven. And that was that.

She’s spent the past few days trying in vain to find a new care option. ​“I’m worried every day that I’m going to pick up a drink.”

“It’s hard when you’re cut loose and just thrown to the woods,” she said. And it’s hard to ask for help — especially when you’ve already asked for help, had been in treatment, and then that treatment fell apart.