Addiction Recovery Model Uses Craving & Anxiety Scales to Reduce Relapse Risk

The percent of alcohol sales growth across the country is up more than 50% since coronavirus hit, but there are treatment and recovery models out in front of the problem, or trying to be. "People are using more substances to cope but we are engaging," Nzinga Harrison, MD, the co-founder and chief medical officer at Eleanor Health, reported live on our behavioral health forum April 3rd. Eleanor Health, named for first-lady Eleanor Roosevelt, has one of the nation's few value-based payment structures among addiction treatment providers, which basically means "we can contact people outside a billable visit and not have to worry about how that constrains our resources...it allows us to engage." And in a crisis, it has allowed Eleanor Health to do more effective outreach using its patient data. "We now have pre-Covid baselines on all our members on PHQ9 (depression screenings), virtual appointments, craving scales and whether it was easier to engage in group counseling situation before or after Covid." Harrison, an adult psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist by training, says they track "craving and anxiety scale scores" and use them to help reduce relapse risk. "We know that the [government's] Covid stimulus represents additional relapse risk, so we have proactively approached everyone to execute a safety plan." Eleanor is in a rare group of behavioral companies - having evolved to take risk not just for commercially insured but also Medicare Advantage and Medicaid. It is involved in value based arrangements that pay based on acuity level, and in at least one case based on total cost of care. It puts the company at the center of the patient’s care as traffic cop and as treating provider. A true “behavioral health home.” Taking all types of patients regardless of insurance has allowed Eleanor to scale new markets, like Washington state, to increase access. Dr. Harrison's commentary is highlighted here in our Friday Forum along with perspectives from an autism expert and Mayo Clinic neurologist.[audio mp3="https://thebehavioralhealthhour.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/20-0403-covid-series-7-recording.mp3"][/audio]