Answer Addiction

Tag: treatment programs

  • Experimental Addiction Treatment Program May Soon Lose Funding

    Experimental Addiction Treatment Program May Soon Lose Funding

    The medication-assisted mental health and addiction programs were showing promising results, but are running out of time.

    A federally funded experimental medication-assisted treatment program may be on its last legs, according to The Washington Post. The program, which has shown some promise in combating the opioid crisis in the year it’s been running, could dissolve as soon as March.

    If the program disappears, up to 9,000 patients would suddenly find themselves without a program and around 3,000 clinic personnel would be out of their jobs, according to an analysis by the National Council for Behavioral Health (NCBH). Because the clinics have to give their workers a 60-to-90 day advance notice for termination, the clinics could see staff leaving to seek other jobs as soon as January.

    Combating the opioid crisis has consistently been a bipartisan issue that both Democrats and Republicans have committed to working together on, but funding for the treatment programs was notably absent from Congress’ $8.4 billion budget that was passed in October. Speaking for the NCBH, Rebecca Farley David speculated that Congress got cold feet when they saw the projected cost of funding the treatment package: $520 million.

    “There was a lot of concern in Congress about the overall cost of the package,” she said.

    The program was conceptualized in 2014 through a set of standards, dubbed the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, and was set to receive two years of flexible funding. In its first year of service in 2017, the program served around 381,000 patients according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Now, the program is due to expire in Oklahoma and Oregon in March and Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, and New York in May.

    These states are trying to come up with alternate avenues for funding, including Medicaid waivers or applying for grants to keep paying staff after the federal funds dry up.

    It’s not just the patients and clinic workers that would suffer if these programs end. Law enforcement and the justice system also benefited from the program. If officers pick up intoxicated suspects, they cannot rely on these programs and instead have to take the time to drive the prisoner to an emergency room. Inmates being released from Niagara County jail relied on these programs to automatically continue treatment.

    “When people fail to make that first appointment upon release, we’ve lost them,” said Deputy Chief Daniel Engert. “Their condition deteriorates, they reoffend, and then they end up back in jail, or worse, they end up dead.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • New York's Opioid Prescription Monitoring System Needs Improvement

    New York's Opioid Prescription Monitoring System Needs Improvement

    The newly re-elected State Comptroller has found some major issues with the opioid prescription monitoring system. 

    An audit of the New York State opioid prescription monitoring database found that patients in treatment for opioid dependency may have received potentially dangerous opioid prescriptions outside of their treatment programs.

    Newly re-elected State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli issued a statement indicating that some treatment programs were not cross-referencing patients’ treatment with other opioid prescriptions, or coordinating with health care professionals.

    The audit showed that a third of Medicaid recipients in treatment received opioid prescriptions outside of their program; of that number, nearly 500 were said to need medical treatment for an opioid or narcotic overdose within a month of receiving the prescription, and 12 died as a result of said overdose.

    The Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing (I-STOP) is a database of records for all controlled substances dispensed in the state and reported by either a pharmacy or dispenser. Treatment programs are not required to disclose the medication they give to patients, but in some cases, are required to check I-STOP to determine if a patient is receiving opioid prescriptions from other sources.

    If outside prescriptions are found, the program can consult with health care professionals to determine the appropriate response, after consent from the patient is obtained.

    According to the statement, DiNapoli’s auditors looked at state Department of Health (DOH) records from October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2017 and found 18,786 Medicaid patients who were receiving opioid treatment—usually methadone—through a recovery program as well as additional opioid prescriptions. Of that group, 493 required medical attention as a result of 691 opioid or narcotic overdoses that occurred within a month of receiving the opioid, and 12 died while under medical care.

    The statement also reviewed medical records from a sample group of 25 Medicaid recipients from three treatment programs. Data from Medicaid showed that these individuals had received 1,065 Medicaid opioid prescriptions while undergoing treatment; additionally, these treatment programs only cross-referenced the patients’ data on 18 occasions, and did not check if a medication-assisted opioid was prescribed for take-home use, which is required by state law.

    Consent forms to coordinate care with prescribers were required of only 13 of the 25 in the sample group, of which three did not sign the form. The programs were aware of only 53% of those Medicaid prescriptions for these patients, while consent to care was coordinated for just 8% of those prescriptions. 

    “New York and the rest of the country are facing an opioid addiction epidemic, and people’s lives are at stake,” said DiNapoli in the statement. “Programs designed to get individuals off highly addicted opioids can only be effective with proper vigilance. The state Department of Health should take steps to help treatment programs and health care providers work together to prevent overdoses that could lead to hospitalizations or death.” 

    DiNapoli’s statement also included a list of recommendations for the DOH to improve I-STOP, including a report that notifies treatment programs when recipients are receiving opioid prescriptions. The DOH did not agree with all of the audit’s conclusions, but added that actions would be taken to address the suggestions.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Cryptocurrency Addiction Treatment Program Launches In Scotland

    Cryptocurrency Addiction Treatment Program Launches In Scotland

    The announcement has sparked debate about the validity of digital currency addiction. 

    A hospital in the south of Scotland is offering what is described as the first residential treatment for dependency on cryptocurrency.

    Therapists at Castle Craig Hospital in Peeblesshire, which provides treatment programs for drugs and alcohol, will apply methods used to treat gambling addiction to assist individuals who have become dependent on trading digital currencies like Bitcoin.

    Though no scientific studies have been conducted to confirm whether dependency to cryptocurrency trading is an actual condition, medical professionals have concurred that the nature of bitcoin trading—which can yield or lose thousands of dollars at a moment’s notice—might cause some individuals to exhibit dependency-driven behavior when using it.

    In its coverage of Castle Craig’s bitcoin program, Metro UK quoted Chris Burn, a gambling therapist at the facility, who drew a connection between gambling dependency and similar behaviors linked to cryptocurrency.

    “The high risk, fluctuating cryptocurrency market appeals to the problem gambler,” he noted. “It provides excitement and an escape from reality. Bitcoin, for example, has been heavily traded and huge gains and losses were made.”

    His sentiments were echoed by therapist Tony Marini, whose struggles with gambling and cocaine dependency made him an ideal choice to lead some treatment sessions at Castle Craig.

    “I see cryptocurrency trading as a way for people to escape from themselves into another world, because they don’t like the world they’re in,” he stated. “The first stage of treatment is to join other addicts in group therapy and share their life stories. It helps them identify with each other and realize they’re not alone.”

    The notion of Bitcoin and other digital currencies as dependency-forming is not relegated to the staff at Castle Craig. The Austin, Texas-based Daily Dot referenced a 2014 online discussion on Reddit which, while largely humorous, did indicate that some users felt that Bitcoin was “like a drug” as one individual wrote.  

    For Dr. Timothy Fong, an associate professor of psychiatry at UCLA, the assessment has some merit. “You could replace the words ‘digital currency’ with ‘crack cocaine,’ ‘methamphetamine, ‘marijuana,’ or ‘gambling,’ and you’ll see some of those same kind of ways people talk about it,” he noted. 

    But he is hesitant to refer to dependency issues regarding bitcoin as an actual condition. “There is truth to that,” he said to the Dot. “But it’s a funny statement because you could say the same thing about sex, sports, handbags, a freshly-cut lawn, an ocean view—all those things are naturally rewarding, and they activate the portion of our brain that’s rewarding.”

    View the original article at thefix.com