Medication-assisted drug treatment facility opening in Jeffersonville

SelfRefind, which has 20 other locations, combines counseling, case management services and monitored Suboxone treatment to help people with opioid addictions.

The medication-assisted treatment (MAT) facility, which will be located at 1820 E. 10th St., will become one of at least two in Clark and Floyd counties. A facility named Groups that prescribes Suboxone opened in New Albany in March and Southern Indiana Treatment Center has been combining medication and treatment in Charlestown for years now. 

Suboxone stops the agonizing effects of opioid withdrawals. While the prescription drug is an opioid itself, SelfRefind staff and other advocates say that if a patient’s intake is monitored, it can be used in conjunction with counseling to kick addiction. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, MAT has been shown to increase retention in treatment and decrease drug use and the criminal activity associated with it.

Suboxone is only a “small part” of SelfRefind’s treatment, said Ginger Jackson, vice president of business development and marketing for the company.

When a person comes to SelfRefind for treatment, they meet with a counselor and a physician, who create a treatment plan for them.

That plan can include medication, as well as group or individual counseling and those previously-mentioned case-management services, which provide help with everything from employment to housing. Those are the things that help re-establish a patient back into their community, Jackson said.

At SelfRefind, a patient's Suboxone intake is also monitored. SelfRefind’s employees count patients’ medication to make sure they aren’t selling it or taking it improperly, and they also perform drug screens.

Patients are written their Suboxone prescriptions by SelfRefind staff, and they pick their medication up at a pharmacy.

SelfRefind’s goal is to turn its patients back into productive members of society, Jackson said. To David Hayden, the company’s vice president of clinical operations, that means a person who has a purpose, who has a safe support system and who is either off of Suboxone or taking it like it’s medication.

Patients usually visit SelfRefind for a median of 18 to 24 months before they’re finished with their program.

SelfRefind got started in the mid-2000s in Danville, Ky. Its founder’s wife was addicted to opioids, but she recovered after visiting a MAT program in Europe. The founder enlisted the help of another physician and started the company. 

SelfRefind has “kept growing” since then, and just recently opened its first Indiana location in Evansville. By the end of 2018, the company hopes to own nine more in the state, including Jeffersonville’s.

SelfRefind chose the city, in part, because its Louisville location cares for many patients from Southern Indiana, Hayden said.

The Jeffersonville facility will employ seven to 12 people, three to five of which will be physicians, counselors and case managers. The average SelfRefind location also serves around 250 patients at a time.

Part of SelfRefind’s mission is becoming a resource for its community, Jackson said. In other places, that’s meant going to schools to talk about addiction or becoming a member of a local heroin task force.

The company hasn’t done that in Jeffersonville yet because SelfRefind is focusing on its Evansville location, Jackson said, but it will probably start in the next couple of weeks.