Baltimore Center Offering Full Range of Opioid Addiction Treatment Serves as Model

A facility in Baltimore that offers a full range of opioid addiction treatment options is serving as a model to centers in other parts of the country, according to Stateline.

The Broadway Center for Addiction, operated by Johns Hopkins Hospital, provides methadone maintenance therapy, as well as the opioid addiction medications buprenorphine and naltrexone. In addition, the center offers mandatory addiction counseling and group classes. Most methadone clinics do not offer other treatments, the article notes.

“If you went to a doctor for any other disease, you’d expect to be offered all available treatment options,” said Dr. David Gastfriend, Scientific Adviser at the Treatment Research Institute, which studies substance abuse treatment. “Addiction treatment should be no different.”

The center collaborates with more than 30 office-based doctors in the area who are licensed to prescribe buprenorphine. It connects patients with a range of services, including housing, transportation and job training. Last year the Office of National Drug Control Policy cited the Broadway Center as a model for improving the quality of and access to much-needed opioid addiction services.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has given the center a grant to share details of the program and its outcomes with other states. Some methadone clinics in Oregon and Washington are emulating the Broadway Center’s collaborative opioid prescribing approach. Rhode Island plans to launch similar programs at its methadone clinics.

Georgia and New Mexico would like to launch collaborative programs, but have not been able to sign up local doctors.

Earlier this year, Stateline reported that despite the rising rate of addiction to opioids, a relatively small number of doctors are authorized and willing to prescribe buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction.

Studies have found that opioid addiction medicines like buprenorphine, which is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, offers a much higher chance of recovery than treatments not involving medication, according to Stateline.