TennCare Addiction Treatment Using a Suboxone Bus?

A TennCare Suboxone Bus? Seriously?

Well, not quite, But if you think about how Recovery Care’s TennCare Telemedicine Program can now provide Suboxone addiction treatment to anyone in the state of Tennessee, well, it’s kinda the same thing.

“Years ago we actually toyed with the idea of creating a Suboxone bus. It’s not such a crazy idea. Think about it – People everywhere in the State of Tennessee need Suboxone treatment. There are many rural areas where opening a brick & mortar addiction clinic just doesn’t make sense due to smaller populations. There are hundreds of towns in Tennessee where a lower population count makes the idea of a physical clinic nearly impossible. However, those same hundreds of smaller communities still need addiction treatment with Suboxone. We started asking ourselves, ‘how do we get this done? How can we deliver addiction treatment to everyone in Tennessee, regardless of their location?'”

Drew Bourke – Managing Partner at Recovery Care

It turns out that only a handful of licensed addiction treatment clinics in Tennessee can provide Suboxone treatment to Tennessee residents using telemedicine. Even fewer who can do w=this while accepting TennCare insurance. You have to have all the boxes checked, get credentialed with the right insurers, get TennCare’s blessing, and of course become a BeSmart-certified clinic.

Recovery Care meets all of that criteria, and a whole lot more. Recovery Care employs board-certified physicians who specialize in addiction, along with LADAC therapists who hold a master’s degree. These are some seriously smart, well-educated people who have a passion for providing first-class addiction treatment to Tennessean’s.

So, how do we fit all of them on a bus?

Forget the Bus, Let’s Go Online
Things changed for the State of Tennessee in 2019 much thanks to COVID. COVID introduced the idea of addiction telemedicine treatment to the State of TN, but only as a temporary measure to keep people from spreading COVID-19.

Addiction Telemedicine Accepting TennCare is a Whole New Chapter

Accepting insurance and providing addiction is tough enough. The number of hoops a clinic needs to jump through is in the hundreds. Adding state-provided insurance to the already difficult guidelines makes addiction telemedicine extremely difficult.

Systems and processes are needed to keep staff and patients inline with everything that has to be done to check all the boxes. Patients follow the same visit routine and requirements they’d follow at a brick and mortar clinic, only using video.

Drug screens, therapy and doctor visits are all performed using video – which in itself has to meet HIPAA requirements. Communications have to be highly scrutinized to ensure privacy is held at is maintained at the highest level of security.

What’s the Result?

The result? The Recovery Care TennCare Suboxone Telemedicine Program is a success. Patients love it. Staff love it. Everyone loves it.

It was bumpy as heck at first, putting all the technology, people and infrastructure together. You really don’t know what your challenges are until you actually try things and day one of telemedicine Suboxone was rough as heck. But, from the roughness we learned what we needed to do and we implemented quickly by increasing staff, adding technology and creating systems and processes with checks and balances to make sure things go as smoothly as they can.

Perfection this isn’t. But, it’s good medicine and it’s highly compliant. Ultimately, it’s helping a lot of people and hopefully many more to come.

Addicted to opioids and can;t get to a Suboxone clinic? Register now for TennCare Suboxone Telemedicine at Recovery Care.

Got a question or comment? Let us know in the comments area below.