Purpose
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, methadone clinics are one form of treatment for patients who are addicted to opioids. Methadone clinics provide methadone maintenance treatment, which can be used to help patients stop using street opioids (such as heroin) or prescription opioids (such as codeine or oxycontin). Methadone is a synthetic drug that blocks the parts of the brain that respond to opioids. As a result, it can help reduce the cravings that can make opioid withdrawal so difficult as well as prevent patients from getting the euphoria or "high" that they associate with opioid use. Methadone also stays in the body for an extended period of time, which allows patients to get its positive effects with only one dose per day.
Initial Screening
A 2009 article in Emergency Medicine News explains that methadone clinics begin treatment with a new patient via an initial screening session. The patient is given information about the rules and regulations that the clinic has as well as how methadone maintenance treatment works. Patients are also interviewed in an attempt to determine the extent of their opioid addiction as well as what other factors (legal, social, cultural and medical) may represent barriers for treatment. This interview is also important to identify patients who may be violent or who need more intensive treatment (such as hospitalization).
Methadone Administration
The main focus of a methadone clinic is to provide daily methadone doses for its patients. Typically, the methadone is only given onsite, which means that the patient needs to come to the clinic every day to receive the methadone. Some clinics allow patients who cannot come to the clinic every day to receive doses that they can take home and self-administer. Although the policies on take-home dosing vary from clinic to clinic, most require the patients to have already been in treatment for an extended period of time (such as a few months) and to have a demonstrable reason why they cannot come every day to the clinic.
Most methadone clinics also offer counseling to help patients deal with the psychological aspects of addiction. Methadone treatment is often a long-term process and may require patients to continue to take methadone for many years.
