One Year in Columbia Providing TennCare Telemedicine Suboxone Treatment
It’s our birthday this January, and we are so grateful to have opened our first center in Columbia.
When we opened in January 2022 we assumed this might be one of many locations we’d open in Tennessee over the next few years. Our plan was to open 5 clinics in the next four years. That was just before everything changed.
The Suboxone Old West
Up until just recently most people in the addiction space had similar plans: Open multiple clinics throughout Tennessee in order to treat the highest number of patients. Opening multiple clinics was the only way to reach a great number of people seeking addiction treatment. To do so you have to be where the population is at, typically the larger cities and suburbs.
Suboxone Treatment During COVID
COVID has been a royal pain in the ass for most businesses. Yet for healthcare it has created some very interesting possibilities. COVID opened the gates for telemedicine. Prior to COVID telemedicine was an idea. People were slowly implementing video visits, but usually used them only for emergencies.
Addiction is filled with little emergencies. Sometimes getting to an appointment isn’t as easy as it sounds when it’s weekly, bi weekly or even monthly.
Some clinics have a very slow appointment process, sometimes leaving patients to wait for two, possibly three hours per visit. When someone couldn’t make it to their appointment it meant contacting them by phone for their visit, which isn’t the best method of treatment, especially addiction treatment.
All of that changed with COVID (except for the long wait times at certain Suboxone clinics). COVID made possible the idea that telemedicine could be used for many forms of healthcare, addiction fitting right in with the non-emergency type of medicine.
At first the federal government stepped in and allowed telemedicine in most any case where it benefitted a patient. Then, the different states jumped in and mirrored the federal guidelines which allowed for patients to be cared for using audio and video telephony if there were no other options available. Even communication platforms like FaceTime became temporarily HIPAA-compliant because they provided instant access to most of the population without needing to download and register with specific types of software.
Technology to the Rescue
2020 saw an abundance of technology platforms pivoting toward telemedicine solutions. Not just communications, but also charting, document transfer, group meetings, and so much more.
Addiction fit right in with these changes. Being able to see a patient remotely meant business as usual in come cases, keeping patients cared for and businesses in business.
Suboxone Treatment After COVID
The federal government and many states suddenly realized that private sector businesses were able to pivot and in some cases even grow, despite the lack of human touch. Healthcare followed suit and realized that as long as patients receive a certain level of care, have access to doctors, therapist and medications, then what’s the difference?
Addiction treatment providers have held strong to using technology to assist patients. In some ways addiction treatment has gotten better thanks to COVID, but more on that in just a minute.
Do We Really Need Four or Five Clinics?
As mentioned in the start of this article, Recovery Care had plans to open up to five facilities in the next three years. A very costly, risky undertaking considering the up-front cost of opening a medical facility with no guaranty of success. But all that changed in 2022.
2022 saw state and federal guidelines change for addiction providers in a big way. The state of Tennessee loosened up the restrictions on telemedicine permanently, making telemedicine a normal way of doing addiction treatment.
It’s Smart to Be TennCare BeSmart
Recovery Care is a TennCare-certified BeSmart addiction provider. That means Recovery Care must perform a level of treatment and compliance that is far above what typical addiction providers do. As a BeSmart clinic, Recovery Care has earned the privilege of being able to provide telemedicine addiction treatment to anyone in the state of Tennessee.
You read that right – Anyone in the state of Tennessee can receive telemedicine addiction treatment from Recovery Care. And, since Recovery Care accepts all three TennCare insurances (AmeriGroup, BlueCare and United Healthcare), it literally means that most anyone with state insurance (and some private insurances, too) is eligible for opioid addiction treatment at Recovery Care. All they need to do is signup to get started ASAP: