• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Addiction Treatment Forum

Addiction Treatment Forum

Addiction Treatment Forum reports on substance use news of interest to opioid treatment programs and patients in medication-assisted treatment.

  • Newsletter
  • Addiction Resources
  • Methadone
  • Buprenorphine
  • Patient Brochures
  • Events
addiction treatment

NIMBY Doesn’t Affect Only OTPs

October 11, 2019 by Alison Knopf

addiction treatmentEven buprenorphine treatment programs are being chased out of town—at least, if the towns have anything to say about it. This happened to ReVIDA Recovery Centers, which sought to move one facility after a fire destroyed the other one. ReVIDA had wanted to provide continuity of care for patients, but Morristown, Tennessee decided to deny a zoning permit to the program. ReVIDA, which provides medication-assisted treatment with buprenorphine, responded by saying that it would sue.

“Our patients are our first priority,” said CEO Lee Dilworth in a September 25 statement. “The City of Morristown clearly misinterpreted the law. We are asking the court to correct this error. Above all, we want to ensure that our patients in Morristown continue to receive the highest standard of care as they continue on their path to recovery.”

ReVIDA is licensed by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services as a non-residential office-based treatment facility; its physicians are able to write prescriptions for buprenorphine.

Zac Talbott, CMA, Director of Clinical Services for ReVIDA, noted that Morristown has a zoning ordinance specifically for opioid treatment programs (OTPs) (which the town likes to call “methadone clinics”), and applies a different standard to those programs than to treatment programs for other chronic diseases. In this case, the town must have thought ReVIDA was an OTP—it’s not, it just uses buprenorphine. Mr. Talbott doesn’t think the ordinance is legal.

Mr. Talbott, a MAT advocate who attributes his own long-term recovery to methadone treatment, opened Counseling Solutions, an OTP in Georgia, in 2015, then added another in North Carolina. He sold both OTPs to BayMark in 2018. He left BayMark recently (on good terms) and is now at ReVIDA, working tirelessly against the stigma methadone and buprenorphine patients—and their providers—face. He is the incoming president of NAMA-Recovery, and will receive the Robert Lane patient advocate of the year award at AATOD later this month.

Filed Under: 2019, 30-5, Newsletter

Primary Sidebar

Upcoming Events

CADCA 2023 Leadership Forum and SAMHSA’s Prevention Day
January 30-February 3, 2023

Washington, D.C.
http://cadca.org/forum2023

2023 Rx and Illicit Drug Summit
April 10-13, 2023

Atlanta, Georgia
https://www.rx-summit.com/

2023 ASAM conference
April 13-16, 2023

Washington, D.C.
https://annualconference.asam.org/

 

View More Upcoming Events…

ATForum.com

  • Newsletter
  • Addiction Resources
  • Rx Methadone & Safety
  • Patient Education Brochures
  • Events
  • Related Websites

Addiction Resources

  • Addiction and Recovery
  • Addiction Treatment Forum
  • Books and Booklets of Interest
  • Drug Screening and Testing
  • Evidence-Based Addiction Medicine
  • Federal Government
  • Health Care Reform
  • Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS
  • Medication-Assisted Treatment
  • Mental Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Online Continuing Education Free Training Modules

Footer

Addiction Treatment Forum is produced by an independent medical communications agency. Commercial advertising is not accepted.
Published by Clinco Communications, Inc.
About Us
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Follow Us

Sign up for News!

© 2023 Addiction Treatment Forum · All Rights Reserved