New drug treatment payment proposed in Md.

A new proposal has been brought to the table on treating drug addiction by the Maryland Department Of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH), specifically concerning how clinics and health facilities pay to administer methadone treatment to recovering drug addicts.

Officials want to reduce Medicaid reimbursements for methadone treatments from 80 dollars per patient per week to 42 dollars.

While this may sound like a cut in funding, DHMH says it’s more of a re-structuring which will give the recovering patient a set amount of money a week for medication and allow the clinic they’re working with to bill Medicaid for the counseling which might not be the same every week.

Shannon McMahon, a deputy secretary of Health Care Financing at DHMH, says this will lead to better patient outcomes.

“People are going to do better if they do medication and therapy together,” Explains McMahon.

Methadone is a form of treatment provided to people addicted to pain medicine or heroin.

Lori Brewster, the health officer at the Wicomico County Health Department, says they currently treat about 290 patients among Wicomico, Worcester Dorchester and Somerset counties.

“It’s a disket that we dissolve in liquid.” Says Brewster. “We dissolve it in juice or water that they take in front of us on a daily basis.”

McMahon says the proposal to separate the billing for counseling services might encourage more patients to stick with counseling, because the clinic might be able to pay for what the patient could not. She explains it could also help track progress.

“The big picture here is that we want to drive clinical outcomes by allowing people to have both therapy and medication to treat their addiction.” She says.

Brewster agrees the change would not affect access to methadone, and it could streamline the process within the department.

“We are not certain how that is going to impact us at this point, but we do know for those individuals that we provide treatment to, that also get treatment in other counties, we won’t have to split payment in those other counties.” Explains Brewster.

Maryland DHMH says they welcome any input during this process. The public comment period is open through January 29.

Comments may be submitted to dhmh.medicaidsud@maryland.gov.