On October 20th, John Leipold and I attended an addiction recovery meeting in Rockville, MD organized, hosted and presented by SAMHSA. The acronym is short for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The title of the meeting was 2011 Consensus Building Summit on Electronic Health Records (EHR) for Behavioral Health. The mission of the meeting was to ensure that the behavioral health provider network and consumer providers fully understand and participate with the general health care delivery system in the adoption of health information technology. John and I were actually invited to the meeting as representatives of the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. As such we were representing a great many addiction recovery treatment programs not just Valley Hope.

One of the meeting sessions focused squarely on health information exchanges (HIEs) a key element of national health reform. The goal of HIEs is to build a system that enables health care providers to quickly access information about the health care history and treatment history of any given patient in a way that improves health care treatment, eliminates medical errors, and reduces the cost of care. In practice this means that I, for example, will current and that my physician can quickly gain access to assist in my addiction recovery treatment. To extend the example, this would mean that if I am traveling and need to go to an emergency room for treatment say in Denver, my physician there could quickly access my virtual record to learn about my medical problems and medication and other treatment history to assist with quick and effective treatment. The physician wouldn’t need to rely solely on my direct report at a time when I might not be able to give an accurate account of my history.

I’ve provided significant detail that so far may have you bored to tears in order to say that I basically had two major points to make at this summit on behalf of the addiction recovery programs I was representing. My first point was that our programs very much wanted to know that addiction and chemical dependency treatment will be included in national health care reform and that on behalf of our patients we will be able to participate in Health Information Exchanges. Stated another way, we want chemical dependency to be seen as a disease like other diseases treated in our healthcare system and that information about chemical dependency will be in included in systems of information exchange about patients.

My second point was that chemical dependency needs to be included in a way that insures that such systems of information exchange do not ignore the privacy protections assured chemical dependency patients by 42 CFR part two– a federal law that applies specifically to chemical dependency patients. As a result of this law, addiction recovery patients currently have greater confidentiality and privacy protections than do general medical patients and there is a very good reason for that to be the case. To this day the less than cautious release of information about individuals that would indicate they have the disease of chemical dependency can result in a variety of negative consequences. As most of you know there is still significant stereotyping, stigmatizing of and discrimination towards those with addictive disease. People with chemical dependency need to know that if they seek addiction recovery information about their treatment it will be protected and will not be released indiscriminately without direct permission. Our patients need to have knowledge about and control over what personal and treatment information is available in health information exchanges.

Valley Hope will be one voice that continues to fight to have chemical dependency recognized as a disease AND for the privacy and confidentiality rights of our patients. To this point, chemical dependency is included in health care reform efforts. We all can be happy for that. However, there is the real danger that as the Affordable Healthcare Act is implemented it will have unintended and adverse consequences for those suffering from chemical dependency. I am writing this article to let you know there are a lot of people who care about the chemically dependent and their families and who are fighting hard for them. This is an important time to be a part of the addiction recovery fight. Count us in.

Go to www.valleyhope.org or http://goo.gl/65ziF to learn more.

Ken Gregoire is the president and CEO of the Valley Hope Association. Go to http://www.valleyhope.org to learn more.

Ken Gregoire is the president and CEO of the Valley Hope Association. Go to http://www.valleyhope.org to learn more.

Author Bio: Ken Gregoire is the president and CEO of the Valley Hope Association. Go to http://www.valleyhope.org to learn more.

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: addiction recovery, drug rehab, drug and alcohol treatment centers, alcohol rehab, drug rehab center