Modoc Nation’s Lost River Treatment Center will operate the Tribal Opioid Response program as a comprehensive program of treatment, prevention, harm reduction, and recovery services for individuals with opioid and stimulant use disorders. Our program service area spans a 50-mile radius from the central point of the Nation’s headquarter office in Miami, OK. This location provides services to the four-state area of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas with the immediate county of service provided being Ottawa County, Oklahoma.
LRTC’s service-treatment area faces many challenges, including: limited public transportation options , lack of skilled professionals (i.e. prescribing doctors, LADC, LPC and other similar certified clinicians), poverty is prevalent at a rate of 20.7% , and the uninsured rate is extremely high, leaving those in need of substance and mental health treatment unable to afford it without financial assistance. Further, in the catchment area (Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri), individuals with private insurance may also be faced with a lack of or no coverage provided for these services, resulting in excessive out-of-pocket costs.
LRTC’s TOR program will provide evidence-based treatment services, including medication assisted treatment, to 50 individuals in year one and 65 individuals in year two for a total of 150 over the entire project period. Additional services include recovery support services, harm reduction services, workforce development trainings, and prevention services. The primary goals for this program are to increase access to treatment, harm reduction, and recovery support services in tribal and rural communities, to improve competencies of the workforce serving individuals with substance use disorders, and to reduce stigma by engaging the community to create a recovery-oriented system of care throughout Ottawa County. Creating cohesion among existing initiatives as well as integrating more treatment, recovery, harm reduction, and prevention efforts will provide a foundation for expanding community awareness of SUD as a medical issue, and not a moral issue. Doing so will increase our community members’ knowledge about substance use disorders, awareness of available services, and, by extension, their willingness to seek treatment.
