How Four States Are Using Their Opioid Settlement Dollars
As opioid overdose deaths reached record highs last year, billions of dollars of opioid lawsuit settlement dollars began flowing to state and local governments. Here’s a look at how four places are spending the money:
1. Emergency Overdose Care.
For The Spokesman Statesman, Amanda Sullender reports that local leaders in Washington aim to use the funding to “increase access to long-acting [opioid overdose prevention medication],” “establish high-intensity community-based teams serving people with opioid use disorder, and “increase the administration of long-acting [opioid overdose prevention medication] to people at highest risk for overdose.”
County leaders are forging ahead:
A Mobile Opioid Treatment Team In Snohomish County. For The Everett Herald, Sydney Jackson reports on EMOTE, a recently-launched mobile opioid treatment team composed of physicians, clinicians, and nurse practitioners who are “addiction specialists” that can “administer medication and behavioral health therapies.”
A New Residential Treatment Center Opens In King County. For The Seattle Times, Elise Takahama reports that the county is opening five new crisis stabilization centers, each with “a behavioral health urgent care clinic that could screen people and triage them to appropriate services, an observation unit where people could stay for up to 23 hours, and a short-term stabilization unit where people could stay for up to 14 days before being discharged or referred elsewhere.” Later this year, the county will also open a longer-term “residential treatment center for those with mental health and substance-use disorders.”
Related: For The Tri-City Herald, Eric Rosane reports that leaders in Benton County—which is a rural county of 200,000 located in the state’s south-central region—approved construction on the region’s “first comprehensive behavioral health and recovery center,” which will offer a “crisis stabilization unit… withdrawal management… residential substance use treatment, [and] short-term treatment.”
2. A Mobile Clinic That Provides Addiction Treatment In Rural Arkansas.
For the Arkansas Times, Stephanie Smittle reports on a new “mobile clinic devoted to treating opioid use disorder [that] brings comprehensive addiction medicine directly to those who need it most.” Called the Arkansas Mobile Opioid Recovery, or ARMOR, State Attorney General Tim Griffin secured a portion of the state’s settlement funds specifically for the creation of the mobile clinic.
Tucker Martin, the program’s chief operating officer, explained to the newspaper that everything that happens at “brick-and-mortar clinics” happens at “the ARMOR mobile health clinic.” This means that patients can “meet with a medical provider to initiate [opioid overdose medication] for an opioid use disorder, talk to a mental health professional and start the process of therapy, [or] have some medical needs addressed as part of [the] pathway to recovery.”
Here’s more detail via Arkansas Times:
“The ARMOR clinic is a recovery hub on wheels, a Class A motorhome [style] structure, outfitted with a nurse’s station, a bathroom and three exam rooms, one of which doubles as a laboratory where blood is drawn… [the clinic’s trained and licensed ] specialists help the person in recovery find employment, get a driver’s license, get a basic financial education or sign up for insurance for the first time… [the mobile clinic] also has more than 1,000 units of [the opioid overdose reversal drug] naloxone [on board]…”
Related: Arkansas leaders have also used settlement funds to launch a new, free mobile app, called Revive AR, designed to “to help with prevention, treatment and even recovery… offering access to live written and audio instructions on administering the life-saving drug [Narcan] if someone around you is experiencing an overdose… instructions for safely disposing, monitoring or securing medications, finding local prevention treatment and recovery resources, [and] allows you to call 911 directly from the app.”
3. Ten New Quick Response Teams In Michigan.
State Attorney General Dana Nessel announced last month that settlement funds will create new teams “of trained healthcare professionals, clinicians and peer support specialists [that] go to a person’s home and connect [them] to support services, treatment, peer support, housing, workforce development and other resources.” The new teams expand on a model that helped to reduce overdose deaths in several Michigan counties:
Saginaw County launched “a quick response team [in 2020] for helping people who recently experienced a drug overdose… within 24 to 72 hours of an overdose, the team will visit the person who suffered it and offer support and options for getting into recovery.” The QRT members then “work closely with [patients] for the first 30 days” to ensure that they receive the medical care and other services needed.
Genesee County created a quick response team in 2021 that “connects overdose survivors with peer recovery coaches and treatment resources to prevent any repeat overdoses.”
Bay City’s quick response team, launched in 2021, which is composed of a peer recovery coach, family recovery coach, and a police officer, “meets with a person who suffered an overdose and their family [and] arranges for treatment and transport immediately… [and then] educates the family as to services available to them including therapy and other social services.”
4. The First Addiction Stabilization Center In Florida’s Pasco County.
For WUSF, Stephanie Colombini reports that County Commissioners voted to route settlement funds to the creation of a new addiction stabilization center. The facility will “offer outpatient services including medication-assisted drug treatment and peer support… [as well as] inpatient facilities for detoxification and withdrawal management services along with psychiatric units.”
Tracey Kaly, director of operations at “the first of its kind in Florida” facility, explained to the news station that the facility will function “similarly to a typical urgent care center for problems like sore throat or ankle sprains… [but this] new facility will have extended hours and allow patients to make same-day or walk-in appointments for mental health and addiction support.”
The new addiction stabilization center is part of a broader plan in the county to fight opioid overdoses. County leaders are also creating:
“Transitional and permanent supportive housing to veterans with substance use disorders”;
An “expansion of opioid addiction services to help more residents who are homeless” ; and
“Mobile outreach and therapy for families affected by addiction.”
