CCHP Earns New York State’s Certification from Office of Addiction Services and Supports
New York State embraces CCHP’s long-held integrative approach to treating addiction and ends the divide between separate addiction services.
Lesley Puryear, NYS Opioid Treatment Authority (SOTA) & Bureau Director, Adult Treatment Services, NYS OASAS, addresses the audience at the CCHP ribbon cutting on May 2, 2023.
The Center for Comprehensive Health Practice (CCHP) is now one of the first Comprehensive Integrated Outpatient Programs in the state certified by New York’s Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS), a move that advances CCHP’s work in providing stigma-free, humane, and comprehensive healthcare to New York’s most vulnerable populations.
In the world of addiction-care models, there is often a divide between those receiving treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs) involving opioids, and those receiving treatment for other kinds of SUDs, such as alcohol. Through CCHP’s involvement with OASAS’s Integrated Licensure Project, the divide is bridged across several aspects of care, including how CCHP looks and operates. Through this integration, patients, staff, and community members can actually see that division disappear.
“We used to have separate waiting areas for different addiction services,” explains Michelle Gadot MS, CCHP’s Chief Operating Officer. “At one point, they were on separate floors with separate counselors. It's all about integrating [formerly] separate groups. Now everyone receiving addiction services has the same groups, the same waiting area, and the same counselors.”
CCHP serves over 3,000 patients total, with close to 500 patients receiving addiction services. Their wraparound services are crucial in Harlem, where the rate of overdose deaths jumped from 50 to 95 per 100,000 residents from April 2020 to April 2021.
“I want to congratulate all the staff at CCHP for the work that you’ve done across the last 60 years in the heart of the East Harlem community, and you’Re going to continue to do more and have more comprehensive services.”
-Lesley Puryear, NYS Opioid Treatment Authority (SOTA) & Bureau Director, Adult Treatment Services, NYS OASAS
Through the integration of addiction services, both physical barriers (like separate waiting rooms) and psychological barriers (such as stigma) are removed for patients. Knowing that you can find a fit in one of CCHP’s programs — whether you are impacted by someone else’s addiction, receiving methadone treatment, or in a support group for recovery from addiction to alcohol — helps build a sense of solidarity among the recovery community. This certification via OASAS helps solidify CCHP’s patient-centered model and validate CCHP’s long-time understanding that the needs of people facing addiction to different substances have similar treatment needs.
“As time went on, everybody realized that the needs of people facing substance use were pretty much the same,” says Annie Mendelsohn LCSW, Chief Executive Officer of CCHP. “The main difference was that some people receive medication. The goal is to try to remove the stigma and make the medication more about treating a disease.”
CCHP’s umbrella of addiction services has always included supporting loved ones of people facing addiction and will continue to. Gadot says, “When you've been impacted by someone's use, you will often put their needs ahead of your own. We offer an opportunity to realize how much their addiction has impacted you.”
The certification helped support new features around the Center, including technology, a waiting area, and new equipment. The integrative license from OASAS aligns with CCHP’s history of whole-person care. While there’s a widespread misconception that centers that offer methadone treatments are only methadone clinics, CCHP has always offered much more as an integrated outpatient program, such as individual counseling, group counseling, vocational education, primary care, HIV prevention/treatment, and family services. With a mission to provide trauma-informed care to everyone, CCHP’s CEO says the license enables the Center to more fully live out its patient-centered model.
“Everybody is human,” she says. “If someone’s need is to have methadone, in addition to whatever else they're getting, that's part of their need as a human. And if someone’s need is to come in for counseling to deal with anxiety because their father's using alcohol, that's their need. And there's no difference between each of those people.”