Cedar Recovery in Chattanooga: Outpatient Addiction Treatment with Medical Detox Support
Cedar Recovery is a residential and intensive outpatient addiction treatment center in Chattanooga that combines behavioral therapy with medical management, making it one of the few local providers that offers medically supervised detoxification alongside structured recovery programming. The facility operates at a smaller scale than hospital-based systems, allowing for individualized treatment in a setting designed specifically for substance use disorder rather than acute medical crises.
What Cedar Recovery actually is
Cedar Recovery provides inpatient residential treatment, intensive outpatient programs (IOP), and standard outpatient services for alcohol and opioid addiction. It is independently operated, not part of a hospital system, and sits between large regional treatment centers and solo counseling practices in terms of scope. The residential program is designed for people who need 24-hour structure but not the full medical complexity of a hospital detoxification unit. Medical detox is available on-site or through clinical partnerships, addressing a significant gap in Chattanooga's treatment landscape: most local urgent care and emergency settings can stabilize acute withdrawal but do not provide the 5-10 day medically supported environment many people need before entering behavioral treatment.
Services and pricing
Residential treatment runs approximately 28 days and costs between $8,000 and $12,000 depending on room type and clinical needs. Intensive outpatient (IOP) programs, which involve 9-20 hours per week of group and individual therapy, cost roughly $300-$500 per week. Standard outpatient therapy ranges from $120-$180 per individual session. Most of these figures fluctuate with insurance reimbursement, and private-pay rates are negotiable; contact the facility directly to confirm current pricing.
Cedar Recovery accepts most major commercial insurance plans and Medicare. Many patients pay a mix of insurance and out-of-pocket, particularly for the residential phase. Sliding scale or discounted rates are available for uninsured patients, though availability is limited. This pricing structure aligns with standard addiction treatment in the Southeast, though some regional competitors charge higher rates for comparable residential programs.
How Cedar Recovery compares to other Chattanooga addiction treatment options
Chattanooga has roughly a dozen addiction treatment providers, but they cluster into distinct tiers. Cedar Recovery's main local competitors are larger hospital-affiliated programs (such as those run by Erlanger or CHI Memorial systems) and smaller counseling-only practices that lack residential capacity.
Hospital-based programs offer advantages if medical complexity is high: access to psychiatry, advanced imaging, and immediate emergency intervention for co-occurring medical conditions. Their disadvantage is cost and gatekeeping. Hospital-affiliated detox typically runs $3,000-$5,000 for a 5-day medical detox stay alone, and referral to aftercare treatment requires navigating multiple systems.
Smaller counseling practices offer lower cost and flexibility but cannot hold patients overnight and often refer out for detoxification, creating gaps in the continuum of care.
Cedar Recovery sits in the middle: it offers residential treatment without requiring full hospital admission (lower cost than hospital-based inpatient), but retains medical capacity on-site (more than pure counseling practices). It suits people who need structure but are medically stable, and who want addiction-focused treatment rather than generic mental health programming. It does not suit patients in active psychosis, those with acute cardiac instability, or those requiring medications available only in a hospital pharmacy; those patients need hospital detox first.
Who it suits and who it does not suit
Cedar Recovery is designed for adults (18+) with primary substance use disorder as the chief clinical concern. It suits employed people who can take 4 weeks off for residential treatment, people in early recovery who need removal from their home environment, and those for whom standard outpatient care has failed. Its IOP is appropriate for people who have completed detox or residential treatment and need structured follow-up, and for those stable enough to live at home but require intensive support.
It does not suit adolescents (the facility is adult-only), people in acute crisis without stable housing, or those whose primary diagnosis is severe untreated mental illness (those require dual-diagnosis programs with psychiatric capacity beyond what Cedar Recovery provides). People with unstable housing often benefit from programs that include case management and transitional housing, which Cedar Recovery coordinates but does not directly operate.
What the first visit involves
New patients typically begin with a phone intake lasting 20-30 minutes, followed by an in-person assessment appointment. The assessment covers substance use history, medical and psychiatric history, current medications, social support, and motivation for treatment. For residential admission, the facility arranges a preadmission physical exam (sometimes off-site if medically complex) and urine drug screening. If medical detox is needed, patients either begin it at Cedar Recovery or are referred to a hospital partner depending on clinical severity; this is discussed during the assessment.
Residential patients are admitted on specific start dates (usually Monday through Friday). Outpatient patients schedule their first group therapy session within days of the initial assessment.
Hours, parking, and logistics
Cedar Recovery operates Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for administrative and outpatient intake; residential patients have access 24/7. The facility is located in downtown Chattanooga (verify the exact address and parking availability by calling ahead, as facility locations and arrangements can change). Street parking is available but limited; most patients and families use on-site or nearby paid lots.
Distance from home is a practical factor for outpatient patients commuting to IOP multiple times per week; Cedar Recovery's downtown location is accessible by public transit (CARTA bus routes 1 and 4 serve the downtown corridor) and by car from most Chattanooga neighborhoods within 10-15 minutes.
Cedar Recovery fills an evidence-based middle ground in Chattanooga's fragmented addiction treatment system, combining detoxification support and residential structure with long-term outpatient follow-up in a single organization, which reduces gaps that typically occur when patients must coordinate care across multiple providers.
