Karen Kistler

karen.kistler@salisburypost.com

 

SALISBURY — “I can’t wait to see us open,” said Robin McCarver, community operations manager for BrightView.

This new outpatient addiction treatment center on Jake Alexander Boulevard in Salisbury will be the 72nd BrightView location with facilities in multiple states across the country. 

McCarver and Leigh Anne Sessoms, the center’s licensed nurse practitioner, shared the history of how the center got its start, with the first one opening in Ohio in 2015.

“We started because our ER doctor didn’t like the stigma for folks that were needing recovery,” said McCarver, “and he decided that he needed to start a clinic” to take that stigma of recovery away.

“They were heartbroken by what they were seeing in the ER,” added Sessoms, and the owners opened up a clinic, which started with a few patients and has continued to grow.

The new location will open Feb. 18 and that day will “look like an everyday doctor visit for these folks,” said McCarver.

A special grand opening celebration, promoted by the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce, will be open to the public and held later in March or April, she said, with refreshments, giveaways and information provided.

When the facility is open, its hours will be from 5:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. with walk-ins accepted and no appointments required from 5:30-11 a.m.

“They will not be turned away,” said McCarver. However, after 11 a.m., they cannot accept walk-ins because there would not be sufficient time to get them until the center closes and the staff leaves, she added.

From 2-5 p.m., McCarver said she conducts tours for their community partners.   

“We are mandated these hours by the DEA, who mandates what we do,” she said.

All of the locations look the same providing a familiar feeling, said McCarver, so that a patient can go to any other location if they need to and experience that familiar feeling.

“It looks just the same, they feel welcomed when they come in. It’s nothing shocking. We want it to feel like home,” she said.

The facility has a waiting area, a treatment room located next to the nurses’ station, lots of office space, a private, secure pharmacy where patients get their medications, a training room where group therapy sessions are held, a room called the Bull Pen where conferences can be held or just a quiet spot for patients to be alone for a time or make a phone call or for community partners to come in and help clients with resumes or work on other activities.

In the kitchen area, food supplies are stored for people who come in and may need something.

“Recovery is one of those things where they need us immediately,” said McCarver, and not knowing when they ate their last meal, food and drinks are made available to them.

“We also have a station we put out front with these portable snacks so they don’t have to ask,” she said.

As community outreach manager, McCarver said it is her job to find social support for these folks including housing, where food banks are located and other facilities they may need to ensure they are taken care of.

In addition to McCarver and Sessoms, other staff members will include two at the front desk, a therapist, two in the pharmacy, an operations director and a medical practitioner.

BrightView offers a variety of services and some of these are unique to them with one of them being the model they follow, and “that model is the medical assistant on day one. There is no wait,” said McCarver.

She did mention that other places provide the same things, but patients have to set appointments, have referrals and wait.

Sessoms added that they have a provider there Monday through Friday while many places have waiting lists because the provider is onsite only one time a week.

“So that’s really important for our patients,” she said.

BrightView also offers comprehensive outpatient services, medication for addiction treatment, medical stabilization for opioids, alcohol and other substances; individual, group counseling and addiction treatment services support; medical assessments by licensed providers; same day and next day scheduling; walk-ins available daily; and telehealth options.

The availability of walking in and seeing the provider on day one also makes them unique along with the fact that the patient is seeing a therapy provider on day two with no waiting, said McCarver.

“Our goal is urgency,” she said. “We want to get them in and we want to be urgent.”

Another unique aspect is the data they run for their community partners who might need the information to apply for funding.

The justice system also needs data, she said, reporting who showed up from probation and parole and if they kept appointments or passed their urinalysis. 

“We keep really close data on who comes into our program so that we can be able to just validate what we’ve done to help the community, which I think is important,” said McCarver. 

Changing the stigma is another factor that makes BrightView unique, she added.

There are additional facilities around, “but we want to be known as the welcoming facility. We have worked long and hard to make the environment where people feel welcomed and loved,” she said.

BrightView accepts Medicare, Medicaid and private insurances and McCarver said for any patient who doesn’t have any of these, “we take the time to set them up with their Medicaid, their Medicare.”

She said they treat anyone with a substance use disorder, and they offer medical assisted treatment using the FDA drugs buprenorphine, suboxone, subutex and methadone.

Group therapy and one-on-one therapy are also used for the patients. The group time provides them with the opportunity to be with “people that are like them, like minded,” she said.

It is a place where they can talk about daily objectives and things they need to accomplish in life.

“It allows them to be around people that make them feel a little more comfortable because they all suffer from the same problems and they’ll open up and it’s just a different extra level of care,” McCarver added.

In her position as community outreach manager, she has visited with community partners to get to know them, learn what they do and how these partnerships are going to come together for them, she said.

Happy about having a budget, McCarver said, “we try to use some of our financial dollars to give back to our community” and buys supplies and gifts to share with these partners who can then share with families who visit them. For example, she pointed out a tote that she said would probably go to Rowan Helping Ministries who could give the items to a new family when they come.

“So it’s been fun for me,” she said. “It’s been challenging. I can’t wait to see us open.”