Nobody is asked to commit before they are assessed. Admission here begins with a conversation, moves to a clinical assessment, then to a coverage check, and only then to a date.
The campus sits in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, across the river from Philadelphia, and its own campus page lists medical detox, residential and inpatient care, a partial hospitalization program, an intensive outpatient program, outpatient programming and aftercare planning. The sections below take each stage of getting in as its own question, from the opening call through to what happens if the answer turns out to be a different campus. For the process as it works across our sites, see our guide to how to get into rehab.
What happens on the first call
Think of it as triage rather than intake. The aim is to work out how urgent this is and what has to happen next.
Whoever answers will want a picture of use, a safety screen and a look at your coverage. The safety screen matters most: previous withdrawals, any seizures, other diagnoses, current prescriptions.
If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental health crisis, call or text 988.
Useful to have within reach: the insurance card, the medication list, and a rough timeline of the last year. Precision is unnecessary.
Nothing leaves that conversation. A federally assisted treatment program may use or disclose substance use records only as the federal rules permit [3] [7], and written consent naming the recipient and describing the information in a specific and meaningful fashion is what unlocks most disclosures [8].
Leave the call knowing two things: the sequence from here, and what to do if withdrawal begins before there is a bed.
The clinical assessment and how the level of care is decided
Level of care is assigned, not chosen. It comes out of a structured assessment measured against clinical criteria.
The assessment weighs withdrawal risk, medical stability, psychiatric risk, motivation, whether lighter levels have already failed, and the safety of the environment you would return to each night.
Those factors place you somewhere on a continuum rather than in a product. Federal sources set that continuum out as a short medically managed withdrawal stay, then intensive residential care, then an intensive outpatient program of two to five days a week across a few months, then standard outpatient care [4].
Two errors are possible, and the assessment is designed to avoid both. Too light, and someone is set up to fail in the first two weeks. Too heavy, and a life that was still functioning gets dismantled unnecessarily.
Push back if the recommendation does not make sense to you. Ask what the second choice was and what would change it. Our rehab intake process page and our levels of care guide set out the options.
Starting treatment at The Recovery Village Cherry Hill at Cooper
The Recovery Village Cherry Hill at Cooper is in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and runs medical detox, residential and inpatient care, a partial hospitalization program, an intensive outpatient program, outpatient programming and aftercare planning. The first step is an assessment, not a deposit.
Check your coverage and admissions
Verify your insurance
The Recovery Village Cherry Hill at Cooper is part of our family of treatment centers. See the Recovery Village Cherry Hill at Cooper campus.
Insurance we work with and how verification runs in NJ
The campus’s own page carries an accepted-insurance note: it says the campus is in network with most major insurance carriers including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana and United [9]. A contract is not a benefit statement, which is why verification exists.
What the verification call settles: whether your particular plan treats this site as in network, which levels it will cover, who has to obtain prior authorization, what is left on your deductible and out-of-pocket limit, and the review cadence once treatment starts.
Federal law sets the floor underneath all of that. Plans sold on the marketplace must include substance use disorder treatment among the essential health benefits, may not exclude a pre-existing condition, and may not apply an annual or lifetime dollar cap to those benefits [2].
Parity law then constrains the fine print. Under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, a plan that covers mental health and substance use care may not apply harsher limits to it than it applies to medical and surgical care, and that reaches prior authorization and step therapy as well as visit and day caps [1]. The requirement reaches Medicaid and CHIP managed care plans as well [1]. Parity has a scope worth knowing. It applies to non-federal governmental plans with more than 50 employees, to private employer group plans with more than 50 employees, and to individual-market coverage. Small-employer group plans are generally outside it, although non-grandfathered small-group and individual plans must cover mental health and substance use disorder services as an essential health benefit under the Affordable Care Act [1].
Ask whether your employer plan is self-funded, because that changes which rules apply. NJ FamilyCare is checked case by case. Our pages on insurance coverage and rehab costs go further.
What to bring and what to leave at home
What you may bring, how belongings are checked, and how phone access and visiting work are all set by the campus, and they change from time to time. Ask the admissions team what currently applies rather than relying on anything general.
Worth packing: everyday clothes you can move in, closed shoes, alcohol-free toiletries, any current prescriptions in the original labeled containers, insurance card, photo identification, and a handwritten page of phone numbers.
Worth leaving: weapons, mouthwash and anything else containing alcohol, medication not prescribed to you, jewelry, and more than a small amount of cash.
Ask how belongings are checked at the door and what happens to anything that cannot come onto the unit. Whatever the rule is, it is applied to everyone rather than to you.
Device rules differ by level of care and by campus. Confirm the current rule with admissions instead of guessing.
The item people most often forget is paper. A written list of medications and the pharmacy that supplies them saves a day of phone calls.
Getting here: travel, arrival window and who can come with you
Cherry Hill is in Camden County, minutes from the Philadelphia side of the Delaware, which makes the region’s airports and rail lines straightforward for anyone coming from further away.
Ask how arrival is scheduled: whether you are given a window or a fixed time, and how early is too early. Intake is paced by clinical capacity, so the answer moves from day to day.
Bring a driver if you can. The journey is where resolve most often fails, and it is harder to abandon a trip from the passenger seat.
Ask on the same call how far a companion can come with you, and where people usually say goodbye. Settling that in advance is easier than negotiating it in a corridor.
If getting here is the barrier rather than the decision itself, say so on the first call. Our directory of campuses shows what else exists if New Jersey is impractical.
The first 24 hours on the Cherry Hill campus
Day one is medical, administrative and slow. Federal sources put a short medically managed withdrawal stay at the front of the continuum [4], with the intensive residential work after it, so arrival day is deliberately unremarkable.
Intake. Forms, consents and a clinical assessment. The consent forms are where you decide who, if anyone, may be told that you are here [7] [8].
Orientation. A walk-through of where things are and how the unit runs. The campus’s own page says that your days change as you move through the levels of care, and that a day may include group and individual therapy sessions, recreational activities and more, with no two programs exactly alike. Ask what that means at the level you are entering, and ask admissions for the current shape of a weekday. The structure surprises most people more than the clinical content does.
Overnight. Where withdrawal is in the picture, ask what monitoring looks like through the night and who is on site. It is a fair question to put before you arrive, and the answer depends on the level of care you are entering.
Not today. Trauma work, family confrontations, and any decision that can wait two weeks.
Feeling worse before better is the normal pattern, and the staff expect it. Our medical detox page covers the withdrawal stage, and our page on what the rehab process is like covers the days after.
Telling work and family
These are two different problems and they have different rules.
Work. No law requires you to hand an employer a diagnosis. What leave you have, what protection applies and what has to be said depend on your employer, your contract and state law. Speak to a trusted human resources contact, a union representative, or a lawyer where the consequences are serious. This page is not legal advice.
Family. Here you hold the switch. The program cannot acknowledge that you are there without your written consent [7], the consent has to name the person and describe the information in a specific and meaningful fashion, and you can revoke it in writing later [8].
Most people disclose to fewer people than they first plan to, and in less detail. That is a reasonable outcome, not a failure of courage.
Give involved relatives something specific to do. A family session in the diary, a visiting day, or one practical task beats open-ended worry.
If this campus is not the right fit
It happens, and finding out during the assessment is far better than finding out in week two.
The usual reasons are narrow. The assessment points to a level of care another campus is better set up to run. Travel makes the step-down stages unrealistic. Or the plan will not authorize this site and no single-case agreement can be reached.
Any of those is a redirection rather than a refusal. Admissions can point you toward another campus in our family that runs the level you need, and our inpatient rehab and outpatient rehab pages describe what to compare.
Where medication is central, that narrows the list further. Federal guidance treats methadone, buprenorphine or naltrexone as standard care for opioid use disorder, usually with counseling alongside [5]; our medication assisted treatment page explains it.
New Jersey also keeps public routes open. The state’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services runs the ReachNJ addiction helpline, points residents to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and distributes naloxone free, anonymously and without a prescription [6]. The Cherry Hill campus page describes this site in full.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I get detox and residential care at the Cherry Hill campus, or will I be moved? Both sit on this campus, and so does everything that usually follows them. Its own page lists medical detox, residential and inpatient care, a partial hospitalization program, an intensive outpatient program, outpatient programming and aftercare planning. A step down from detox to a lighter level is therefore a change of schedule rather than a change of provider. Where you start is set by the assessment, not by the booking.
Does coming from Philadelphia rather than New Jersey change anything? Not clinically. Cherry Hill is in Camden County, minutes from the Philadelphia side of the Delaware, which makes the region’s airports and rail lines straightforward. What it can change is the coverage answer, so say which state your plan was bought in when the team runs the verification, and let them check this campus against it rather than assuming either way.
What insurance do you work with? The campus’s own page says it is in network with most major insurance carriers including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana and United. That contract describes the relationship with the carrier rather than your own benefits, so verification against your plan is what decides coverage. Marketplace plans must include these benefits without an annual or lifetime dollar cap.
What can I do in New Jersey if I am not ready to be admitted? More than nothing, and none of it commits you to a date. The state’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services runs the ReachNJ addiction helpline, points residents to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, and distributes naloxone free, anonymously and without a prescription. Naloxone in the house is worth having whether or not an admission is booked. The admissions call obliges you to nothing either, and asking what a start would look like is not the same as agreeing to one.
Can someone call on my behalf? Yes. Relatives make a great many first calls. What they cannot do is complete the assessment for you or give consent in your place, and staff cannot report back to them unless you have signed a release naming them. In practice the call goes best with both of you on the line together.
Sources
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (2026). The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). CMS. https://www.cms.gov/marketplace/private-health-insurance/mental-health-parity-addiction-equity
- HealthCare.gov. (2026). Mental Health and Substance Abuse Health Coverage Options. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/mental-health-substance-abuse-coverage/
- Office of the Federal Register. (2026). 42 CFR Part 2 — Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-42/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-2
- Office of the Surgeon General. (2016). Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health — Chapter 4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK424859/
- National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2025). Treatment. National Institutes of Health. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/treatment
- New Jersey Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services. (2026). Division of Mental Health and Addiction Services. State of New Jersey Department of Human Services. https://nj.gov/humanservices/dmhas/
- Legal Information Institute. (2026). 42 CFR § 2.13 — Confidentiality restrictions and safeguards. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/2.13
- Legal Information Institute. (2026). 42 CFR § 2.31 — Consent requirements. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/2.31
- The Recovery Village Cherry Hill at Cooper. (2026). The Recovery Village Cherry Hill at Cooper — Accepted Insurance. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/cherry-hill/
This page is for general information and is not medical advice. Only a licensed clinician who knows your history can tell you what is right for you. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. For free, confidential support 24/7, call or text 988.
Author
Chief Medical Officer,
The Recovery Village
