Helpful Information

Everyone is different, and there is much more to treatment than taking medication. Drug dependency is a mental, physical, emotional and spiritual disease. Frequently, it has taken years to get to treatment, so the idea that it should only take a few weeks to recover is not realistic. Ideally, once you are on a stable dose and not having withdrawal symptoms, you should quickly become free of opioids. With the help of your counselor, you should also become free of all illicit drug use and free of alcohol. Once the drugs are out of the system, treatment can truly begin. The goal of medication-assisted treatment is long-term abstinence from mood-altering substances and a rebuilding of a healthy mental, physical, emotional and spiritual lifestyle. Rarely does a patient accomplish this task in less than 6 to 12 months. Once healthy and solid in your recovery, the decision to become a maintenance patient (one who remains at a stable therapeutic dose) or to taper off can be made. For someone tapering from methadone, we recommend no faster than a one- to three-milligram reduction each week with the goal being no withdrawal symptoms. This can take a long time but has been found to be the most successful. If a patient insists, they may taper at a quicker rate.

Unfortunately, most commercial insurance either does not cover medication-assisted treatment with methadone or has not contracted with us. Some of our patients have been able to submit to their prescription drug plan for reimbursement at an out-of-network rate. We can assist you in this, but most patients are either private-pay, Medicaid, or Medicare.

For us, a short-term detox is a six-month protocol. We have found that a quick detox rarely produces any positive long-term results and more often than not results in the return to illicit drug use. This is a significant disease, and it probably took a long time to get to where medication-assisted treatment is needed, so a quick solution is likely not a good one

Most likely, full Medicaid does cover methadone treatment. In addition, most patients with Florida Medicaid are on an HMO. Central Florida Treatment Centers is in network with many HMOs, but they vary from region to region. It is best to contact the clinic you are looking to go to and verify that they are in network with your Medicaid HMO.

All Central Florida Treatment Center programs are Medicare enrolled providers. Medicare does pay for the cost of treatment services at a fully covered bundled rate once the annual deductible for Medicare has been reached. The 2020 deductible for all Medicare patients is $198 which may need to be paid prior to Medicare covering your services. Understand that Part B Medicare is what covers our services. Patients who have a Medicare Advantage Plan (any Part D plan) will not be eligible to have us bill Medicare for treatment as these are similar to HMOs in that each one would have to contract with us independently for us to be able to bill for services. At this time, no Medicare Advantage program has contracted with us for services. We are always working to contract with different insurance options, feel free to contact the clinic you are interested in to see if they have contracted with any Medicare Advantage company.

Some private physicians are able to treat opioid dependence in their office using Suboxone. We, however, do all of the treatment in our clinics, and while a successful Suboxone patient could be eligible for take-homes sooner than a methadone patient, they would not get a prescription. When a Suboxone patient is so successful that they no longer need our clinic, they can be referred to a private physician.

Initially, patients attend the clinic seven days a week for dosing. There is a minimum requirement of weekly counseling (we can do more if desired) as well. As a patient is successful in treatment and begins meeting the criteria for take-homes, attendance can be reduced.

It depends on many factors. Patients who are assessed as still under the influence may not get dosed the first day, but most patients will receive their first dose on the day of admission. The rule for safety is to start low and increase slowly. Patients will not get an initial dose of more than 30 milligrams per state law as it is considered unsafe to start someone at any higher dose. Most patients receive between 20 and 30 milligrams the first day.

Everyone is different and there is much more to treatment than taking medication. Drug dependency is a mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual disease. Frequently it has taken years to get to treatment so the idea that it should only take a few weeks to recover is not realistic. Ideally, once you are on a stable dose and not having withdrawal symptoms, you should quickly become free of opioids. With the help of your counselor, you should also become free of all illicit drug use and free of alcohol. Once the drugs are out of the system, treatment can truly begin. The goal of Medication Assisted Treatment is long-term abstinence from mood-altering substances and a rebuilding of a healthy mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual lifestyle. Rarely does a patient accomplish this task in less than 6 to 12 months. Once healthy and solid in your recovery, the decision to become a maintenance patient (one who remains at a stable therapeutic dose) or to taper off can be made. The length of treatment varies with each individual patient and is affected by many factors such as abused drug of choice, length of addiction and level of dependency, and previous treatment and relapse history.