Amid Rising Substance Abuse Rates, Treatment Centers Turn to Telehealth

With the coronavirus pandemic curbing in-person care, substance abuse treatment programs are turning to telehealth to keep the channels of communication open with people struggling to stay clean and sober.

“It’s been a real challenge,” says Derek Price, CEO of the Las Vegas-based Desert Hope Treatment Center, part of the nation-wide American Addiction Centers network. “We’ve been trying to make things work. But this is the new expectation, and people have to accept the fact that the new existence is telehealth.”

Like so many other treatment centers, Desert Hope offers hands-on care, in both in-patient and out-patient programs that include detox and individual and group counseling sessions. It’s the nature of addiction treatment that sessions are personal, intense and face-to-face, requiring a closeness that can best be achieved with everyone in one room.

COVID-19 changed that dynamic, however.

Desert Hope launched its telehealth platform in February, creating a protocol to isolate and test those coming into the facility, and to begin treatment while awaiting the results of the test (that takes, on average, 24-48 hours). They also used the platform to facilitate virtual counseling sessions.

“At first, we had frustrated patients, frustrated counselors and frustrated doctors,” says Tabitha Johnson, Desert Hope’s clinical director. “It was hard for patients initially who had been through this program before and were used to the human touch. They liked that.”

Group counseling was also difficult. Size limits put an end to larger group meetings, while spacing requirements meant that even a small group would require a big room in which to meet – not easy for any program, but especially for programs that traditionally meet in small classrooms, community clinics or church basements.

“People go to these meetings for companionship … and accountability,” says Johnson. “We were worried about how (telehealth) would affect that.”

With the understanding that this is the new normal, patients and staff at Desert Hope have been adjusting to counseling via video, and they’ve been learning how to make the platform work for them. Johnson says counselors are “embracing counseling in a new way,” and learning how to adjust to the difference between in-person and video meetings.

Price says the platform has given people in outpatient programs the opportunity to attend sessions from more convenient locations like their homes, where they might be more comfortable and relaxed. Counselors, meanwhile, can meet with more people, and create larger group sessions.

“It’s certainly given us the bandwidth to see more people,” he says.

While Desert Hope uses a telehealth platform that meets the strict privacy and security requirements of telemental health treatment, there are the occasional hiccups caused by dropped calls and insufficient connectivity – a challenge for any provider dealing with rural communities or underserved populations. Price says each counselor also has to make sure he or she is licensed to provide treatment in the patient’s home state.

Both he and Johnson are envisioning a future where telehealth is an integral part of Desert Hope’s full range of services, with virtual platforms that link patients, counselors, doctors, pharmacists, family members and peers to each other when needed. Price also wants to see an mHealth platform that people could access on their smartphones or laptops, offering links to resources and providers.

“The rules can be difficult and convoluted,” he says, but it’s worth it if a counselor can get in front of a patient in need in minutes, rather than the days, weeks or months sometimes needed to schedule an in-person visit or wait for a bed to become available in the clinic.

“I want to be able to save that person’s life,” he says.