Rapid Access to Medication Assisted Treatment

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Since September 2018, Henrico Area Mental Health & Developmental Services (HAMHDS) has offered an Office Based Opiate Treatment Program (OBOT) designed to provide individuals with Medication Assisted Recovery. OBOT provides a comprehensive structured approach to treating individuals with Opioid Use Disorders (OUD). The combination of medication assisted treatment (MAT), evidence-based individual and group therapy, case coordination and peer support offer individuals an opportunity to stabilize medically, socially and emotionally. In our initial implementation of the program, access to the prescribers who could initiate medication assisted treatment often took several weeks. In late 2020, HAMHDS implemented a new intake process, “rapid access”. Currently, the rapid access program links individuals requesting MAT within 48 hours. This change led to a 134% increase in requests for services for OBOT from fiscal year 2019/20 to fiscal year 2020/21 and an even larger increase in the current fiscal year. Ultimately, HAMHDS is providing treatment to more people in our community at a time when overdose deaths have increased to devasting numbers.