“To Heaven Godley, a recovering heroin addict, the methadone treatment center he visits every day feels like home. “It’s my refuge,” said the 39-year-old Baltimore native.
Godley’s treatment plan at REACH Health Services, one of 20 opioid treatment centers in Baltimore that provides methadone and other addiction medications, is intensive. He talks to his behavioral health counselor several times a week, sees a psychologist to help manage his anger, and gets regular medical checkups at an on-site clinic.
To encourage the centers to offer more counseling when patients need it, Maryland’s Medicaid agency is changing the way it reimburses them. Rather than paying a flat rate for all patients, the federal-state health care program for the poor in March will begin to pay providers for as much counseling and related medical services as are needed for individual patients. At the same time, the state will lower its traditional per-person weekly reimbursement rate for opioid treatment centers.
The new fee structure is similar to schemes developed in New York and California. New Jersey is moving in the same direction. The shift reflects a growing consensus among medical researchers that patients who receive a combination of addiction medication and counseling fare better than those who receive only one or the other.”
Read more at:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/states-move-to-encourage-more-addiction-counseling_us_58189df7e4b09b190529c9ca
Source: HuffingtonPost.com – November 2, 2016
