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A UT Health San Antonio initiative was selected to lead a major expansion of opioid use disorder and recovery support services across Texas.
Be Well Texas, an initiative of the Be Well Institute on Substance Use and Related Disorders, was awarded $256 million over four years by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission to administer medications like Naloxone for opioid use disorder treatment services and to continue offering recovery support services.
Dr. Jennifer Sharpe Potter, founding director of the Be Well Institute, said the partnership between the university and the commission is a major commitment to support solutions to the opioid crisis.
“The partnership, in and of itself, is noteworthy, because this is an opportunity for us to support the state in delivering these services,” Potter said. “The expansion is about making sure people have access. We continue to see opportunities to improve the amount of funds that go to these services statewide.”
Potter said the funding will be used to begin youth recovery services and expand outpatient opioid use disorder treatment. She said the initiative will also see an expansion of access to methadone, which is provided through opioid treatment programs.
“We are honored to be able to manage, on behalf of Texas Health and Human Services, the contracted treatment programs for methadone throughout the State of Texas,” Potter said. “We’re particularly proud that the state has seen the work that we've done and trusts us with this important delivery model.”
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Potter said youth support services are critical because they limit how long opioid use disorder is a burden on an individual and put them on a path to recovery.
“We’ve seen in Texas an increase in the number of individuals under the age of 18 who've been adversely impacted by opioids,” Potter said. “While not all of those individuals may have had an opioid use disorder, we want to be able to provide them with support related to their opioid use.”
Be Well Texas partners with local practices to provide treatment to people with opioid use disorder across the state. Potter said this funding will allow the initiative to continue working with local partners and also leverage telehealth services to ensure rural and urban communities alike have increased access to treatment.
“The most important thing is that you lean into local, community based, semi-governmental and private practice groups who can be part of the solution,” Potter said. “It’s not top-down dictates — it’s working with the local community to find a solution that makes sense.”
Potter said state funding is the backbone of the services the initiative offers, especially in Texas where some people do not have access to health insurance.
“We would not be able to do this work without the state support,” Potter said. “There would be a sizable number of individuals who would go without treatment, and that would increase the number of deaths in Texas related to addiction.”
Potter said she hopes the work the initiative does creates less stigma associated with asking for help with substance abuse in Texas. The Be Well Initiative is also a research entity that is working to support development of new treatment options.
“We hope, at the institute, to create access to even newer and better treatments, just like you would for any other disease,” Potter said. “We’re not just delivering service with treatments. We're hoping to invent, discover, and be part of providing other treatments in the future.”
