[S]OUTH BURLINGTON — The state’s largest outpatient drug treatment center says it’s reduced the number of people waiting for its services to 90, down from 750 in 2013.
The Chittenden Clinic, which treats people addicted to opiates, is operated by Howard Center, one of 11 designated agencies in Vermont that hold state contracts to provide substance abuse, mental health and disability services.
Patients at the clinic receive counseling and treatment medications, methadone or buprenorphine. Those drugs are intended to prevent the physical symptoms of withdrawal, which can be excruciating, while not giving people the high they experience using heroin or misusing prescription opioids.
A VTDigger investigation in 2015, when the clinic’s waitlist was closer to 300, found that the average amount of time people were waiting for a spot at the clinic was 358 days.
As of April 15, Howard Center officials said the average wait time is 58 days. That’s a precipitous drop even from earlier in the year, officials said. In mid-February, they said the average wait time was 80 days.
Howard Center CEO Bob Bick said there are likely many factors involved in the reduced wait list and waiting times, but one likely contributing factor is an increase in the number of doctors willing to prescribe buprenorphine.
That allows people who are stable enough in their recovery not to need regular counseling to be treated in an office setting. That in turn frees up capacity at the clinics, which offer greater accountability and more support services than physician practices, Bick said.
Another factor is that Howard Center is seeing a drop in the number of people seeking treatment, Bick said. That could indicate that a greater portion of the opiate-addicted population in Vermont is getting some kind of help than was the case a few years ago, he said.
In April, VTDigger reported more than 1 percent of Vermont’s population is taking maintenance medication for an opiate addiction. One expert studying Vermont’s drug treatment system estimated that could be as high as two-thirds of the addicted population in the state — a figure that is getting national attention.
“While these numbers represent our commitment to provide evidenced-based services in a timely manner, we continue to work with community partners toward the shared goal of achieving access to treatment upon demand, not only for medication assisted treatment but for residential services, as well,” said Dana Poverman, director of Medication Assisted Treatment Programs at the Howard Center.
Advocates, elected officials and law enforcement officials have all identified treatment on demand as crucial to fully addressing the opioid epidemic.
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger started working behind the scenes in 2016 to get the University of Vermont Medical Center and other stakeholders to do more to bolster the region’s drug treatment network.
Those efforts were formalized by Police Chief Brandon del Pozo in a data driven initiative that brings treatment providers together with municipal and state officials in weekly meetings to share information and coordinate their response.
State officials have said that the opening of a clinic in St. Albans could further reduce or eliminate the waiting list at the Chittenden Clinic.
That’s because there are currently hundreds of people in Franklin and Grand Isle counties who make daily trips to the Chittenden Clinic in South Burlington, or to another clinic in Newport, to participate in treatment.
The St. Albans clinic was supposed to open in January, but issues identifying a suitable location and obtaining state permits caused delays, and state officials now say they expect the clinic to open sometime this summer.
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