Dori Haddock, CEO of Natural State Recovery, hasn’t been in her position with the organization for two years yet, but she’s already hit the ground running to help people seeking to rid themselves of substance abuse and resume a productive life. Her fast start in that mission is in part thanks to expanded facilities, including a new home for the group’s outpatient services in downtown Little Rock, a resource paid for with opioid settlement funds.
Natural State Recovery received just over $400,000 through the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership (ARORP), an initiative of the Association of Arkansas Counties and the Arkansas Municipal League.
Formed to oversee and manage distribution of some of the funds received by the state through national lawsuit settlements related to the opioid crisis, ARORP represents a network of organizations committed to providing frontline community-based support to address the harm done by the opioid epidemic. Initiatives address gaps in local services and range from sober living and recovery programs to education and prevention efforts.
“The opioid dollars helped us purchase and renovate a downtown building so that we could increase the number of services and people that we were treating,” Haddock said. “The new building is close to some of the sober living housing down there. It’s also on a bus line so clients are able to access us using bus passes if they don’t have personal transportation.
“We used the money to renovate the building and make it usable space for partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient treatment for those with substance use disorder and opioid disorders. We have since expanded that program to what we call the clinic, which means we now offer traditional outpatient and medication–assisted treatment at that location as well.”
Haddock said the downtown facility, combined with Natural State Recovery’s North Little Rock campus, helps strengthen the organization’s full continuum of care.
“Let’s say that somebody calls us and they’re in crisis. And when I say crisis, I mean something typically has happened where their using has gotten to the point their life is unmanageable,” she said. “They’re seeking treatment and at that point we have the ability within both locations to detox that person through a medical detox. After that, they can step down to residential treatment which is typically 20 to 30 days of inpatient stay where they’re not leaving the building at all.
“The next step down is to our outpatient services where they’re getting partial hospitalization for six hours a day, five days a week as we’re integrating them back into their community but still having sober support and the continuity of care. Following nine weeks of intensive outpatient treatment, patients can then avail themselves of outpatient clinical care where they can access individual counseling. That can go on indefinitely.”
The expanded capacity and services have struck a nerve in the community as usage statistics show. Haddock said last year Natural State Recovery’s outpatient services jumped 37 percent and its inpatient usage grew 55 percent. She described this data as a mixed bag – tragic in how it shows the crushing level of need but hopeful in that the group can serve more people at once.
“We’re excited about our growth, overall,” she said. “I mean, obviously we would love to work ourselves out of a job but if we have to be here, we want to help as many people as we possibly can in that process.”
Haddock also credits ARORP for its role in helping the organization accommodate additional patients, saying there’s no telling how or if the group would have been able to raise funds on its own equal to what it received through opioid settlement dollars.
“I don’t know that we would’ve been able to purchase this building without it,” she said. “The reality is that as a treatment program that bills private insurance, the insurance rates in Arkansas are so much lower. It’s a real struggle; Arkansas pays about 68 percent lower than the national average in reimbursement rates for treatment.
“That means most (organizations) cannot make the kind of money it takes to go and purchase a building without putting ourselves into so much debt that they can’t get any return on investment. ARORP and the settlement dollars, therefore, were huge for us.”
The funds have paid off in another way, that being proof of concept sufficient for ARORP to replicate its outpatient model in Conway. While that project was not paid for with settlement funds, Haddock said it came about only after the success of the downtown Little Rock location.
“The Little Rock office is self-sustaining, and its success allowed us to form some community partnerships by which we’ve been able to expand and add our Conway location,” she said. “That facility, which is another outpatient program, further expands our services using the same approach in another community that needs treatment resources.”
“Getting those (settlement) dollars, at the end of the day, gave us a jumpstart to be able to start something that is having a real impact in central Arkansas in a positive way.”
Learn More:
Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership
arorp.org
