Partial Hospitalization Program PHP in Massachusetts

A partial hospitalization program (PHP) is the highest level of addiction treatment you can get without living at a facility. At Massachusetts Center for Addiction in Quincy, PHP means roughly six hours of structured clinical care a day, five days a week, and you go home at night. It is where most of our clients start, either straight from detox or inpatient rehab, or because outpatient counseling was not enough to hold things together.

This page covers what the program includes, what a day looks like, who it is for and who it is not for, how long it runs, what it costs with insurance, and how PHP compares to inpatient rehab and to our intensive outpatient program (IOP). If you already know PHP is what you need, call 844-486-0671 or verify your insurance online; admissions can usually confirm coverage the same day.

What Is a Partial Hospitalization Program?

PHP sits between inpatient rehab and outpatient therapy. You get the clinical intensity of a residential program during the day, with individual and group therapy, psychoeducation, medication management, and daily check-ins, and you keep your evenings, your bed, and, for many people, some part of their normal life. The name comes from the hospital world, where “partial hospitalization” meant day treatment as an alternative to admission. In addiction care it is the same idea: full-day treatment without a 24-hour stay.

The reason PHP exists is that early recovery is the highest-risk stretch. Cravings, mood swings, poor sleep, and the stress of facing life without the substance all peak in the first few weeks. Daily clinical contact gets people through that period with structure and support, while going home each night lets them practice what they are learning in the place they actually live.

What Our PHP Includes

• Individual therapy for addiction, trauma, and co-occurring mental health conditions
• Group therapy and psychoeducation, several sessions a day
• Relapse-prevention planning built around your specific triggers
• Medication-assisted treatment when it is clinically appropriate, managed inside the program
• Dual diagnosis care for anxiety, depression, PTSD, and bipolar disorder alongside the addiction
• Family involvement when appropriate, including family sessions and education
• Wellness, mindfulness, and stress-reduction groups
• Life-skills and recovery education, plus peer support and community-building groups

Our clinicians work from the evidence-based practices set out by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, using CBT, DBT, and motivational interviewing, and the program is accredited by The Joint Commission. Treatment plans are individual and adjusted as you progress.

What a Day in PHP Looks Like

Clients arrive in the morning and move through a fixed sequence of groups with breaks between them, with individual sessions scheduled around the group blocks. The day ends in the mid-afternoon. This is the standard Monday-to-Friday schedule; it can shift for individual needs.

Time (Monday to Friday)	Treatment group
9:00 – 10:40 AM	Little Big Book Group
10:40 AM – 12:10 PM	Psycho-Educational Group
12:50 – 1:50 PM	Wellness Group
2:00 – 3:00 PM	Group Process

Evenings and weekends are yours. Most clients use them to sleep, see family, attend a meeting, and put the day’s work into practice. That rhythm, intensive treatment by day and real life by night, is the point of the program: recovery skills get tested where they will actually be used, with a clinician to talk to the next morning.

Who PHP Is For

PHP is usually the right level of care if one or more of these describes you:

• You are stepping down from detox or inpatient rehab. PHP is the bridge between 24-hour care and living on your own again. Going straight from a residential program to weekly therapy is where a lot of relapses happen.
• Outpatient therapy is not enough. If you have been trying to stop with weekly counseling and it keeps slipping, you need daily structure for a while.
• You have relapsed after earlier treatment and need to reset with more support than last time.
• Cravings, triggers, or emotional regulation are the problem more than physical withdrawal is.
• You have a mental health condition alongside the addiction. Daily contact makes dual diagnosis treatment work; it is hard to treat both in one hour a week.
• You have a safe, substance-free place to sleep. Because you go home every night, home has to be part of the recovery, not a threat to it.

When PHP is not the right fit

PHP is not the right starting point if you need medical detox first (we refer to accredited detox partners and take you in afterward), if you need 24-hour psychiatric or medical supervision, or if your home is not safe or stable enough to return to each night. In those cases a higher level of care comes first and PHP becomes the step-down. If home is the problem but you are otherwise ready for day treatment, sober living paired with PHP is the usual answer. Our admissions team does a clinical assessment before enrollment and will say plainly if a different level of care is the right one.

PHP vs. Inpatient Rehab

Inpatient or residential rehab means living at the facility with round-the-clock supervision. PHP delivers a comparable amount of therapy during the day but you sleep at home. Inpatient makes sense when someone cannot safely be unsupervised: acute withdrawal, serious psychiatric symptoms, or an environment they cannot stay sober in. PHP makes sense once those risks are managed, and it has two advantages of its own. It costs a fraction of residential care, so insurance approves it more readily and for longer, and it lets people keep the parts of their life that are working, whether that is a job on medical leave, children, or school. Many of our clients do both in sequence: residential for stabilization, then PHP with us for the work of staying sober.

PHP vs. IOP: What’s the Difference?

	PHP	IOP
Hours	About 6 hours a day, 5 days a week (25–30 hours)	About 3 hours a day, 3 to 5 days a week (9–15 hours)
Intensity	Multiple groups daily, individual therapy, daily check-ins, close monitoring	Regular therapy and skills groups with fewer clinical hours
Best for	Stepping down from inpatient or detox; needing structure to stabilize	People who have some stability and are ready for more independence
Work and school	Usually on leave during PHP	Often continues alongside IOP; evening tracks available
Home situation	Needs a safe, substance-free home to return to	Same, with more time spent in daily routines
Focus	Stabilization and deeper therapeutic work	Practicing recovery skills in real life

Most people move from PHP to IOP as they stabilize, then to outpatient therapy, support groups, or sober living. That step-down is built into how we plan treatment, so nobody finishes PHP without knowing what comes next. Full details of the next level are on the IOP page.

How Long Does PHP Last?

Most clients are in PHP for 30 to 45 days. That is enough time to get through the most unstable stretch of early recovery, build coping skills, and settle into a routine. Some people need less, some more; the clinical team reviews progress weekly and adjusts. Insurance authorizes PHP in blocks, typically a week or two at a time, based on those reviews, and our team handles the re-authorizations.

PHP Cost and Insurance Coverage

PHP is covered by most commercial insurance plans as a standard level of substance use treatment, and we are in-network with the major Massachusetts carriers. What you pay depends on your deductible and coinsurance, and it is often far less than people expect. Admissions verifies your benefits before you enroll and tells you the number. Our guides on what PHP costs and paying for rehab go into the details, including options if you are uninsured.

PHP in Quincy, Serving the South Shore and Greater Boston

Our center is at 1515 Hancock Street, Suite 300, Quincy, MA 02169, a short walk from the Quincy Center MBTA station on the Red Line and Commuter Rail and minutes from I-93 and Route 3. Clients come daily from Boston, Dorchester, Milton, Braintree, Weymouth, and across the South Shore. Because PHP is five days a week, the commute matters, and being on the Red Line means you do not need a car to get here.

Partial Hospitalization for Addiction: Common Questions

Get Started With PHP at Massachusetts Center for Addiction

If you or someone you love needs more than weekly therapy and less than a locked door, this is the program. Call 844-486-0671 any time, or verify your insurance online. Admissions will do a short assessment, confirm your coverage, and in most cases give you a start date within a couple of days.

Clinically reviewed by Corey Gamberg, LADC II, Executive Director, Massachusetts Center for Addiction. Last reviewed September 2026. This page describes our program and is not a substitute for a clinical assessment; call 844-486-0671 to discuss your situation.

Sources

• SAMHSA: Types of treatment
• NIDA: Principles of drug addiction treatment
• SAMHSA TIP: Substance abuse treatment settings and levels of care (NCBI Bookshelf)
• Medicare.gov: Partial hospitalization