Scranton agency to pick up former Merakey clients
Times-TribuneOct 27, 2018
Friendship House will manage cases for the children, teenagers and adults with disabilities who had been served by Merakey.
Merakey, a national behavioral and mental health provider, announced in August that it was pulling out of
Low insurance reimbursement rates had made continuing operations unsustainable, the company said in August.
Friendship House, a sister agency of the
Many of them are former Merakey employees, so a number of clients should see minimal service interruptions, if any at all.
Friendship House will not renew the lease for Merakey's
Instead, the agency is working to secure another location in the
Clients may choose whichever provider they prefer, Merakey officials said in a statement, adding that the departing company helped connect clients to Friendship House specifically.
In light of Merakey's impending absence, Friendship House applied to be the designated service provider for upper
The Lackawanna-Susquehanna Counties Behavioral Health/Intellectual Disabilities/Early Intervention Program and Northeast Behavioral Health Care Consortium awarded the designation effective
Hazzouri expects a seamless transition.
"Folks will not go unserved," he said. "We've already communicated with all the people receiving services currently from Merakey, and any of those who are children and adolescents, we communicated with their parents and/or guardians."
Contact the writer:
joconnell@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9131;
@jon_oc on Twitter
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