START Treatment and Recovery Centers - Clinic 21/Starting Point OTP

They are set up for 3 levels: outpatient, telemedicine and detox. Of the 8 centers within 14 miles of New York, 1 offers a bed.

They provide detox for 1 substance: opioids. Whether a bed is free this week is a question for the call, and New York has 8 other centers.

They offer telemedicine, so some of this can be done by video rather than traveling into New York.

They prescribe methadone and buprenorphine. Methadone in particular is dispensed under rules that differ from the others, so confirm it before traveling into New York.

The nearest other center is a few streets away, in New York, and there are 8 inside 14 miles.

The useful questions are the ones answerable with a fact: who prescribes, what the schedule is, what follows it. A program that cannot tell you its staff to client ratio usually has a reason. Ask what kind of person this program would turn down, because a real answer exists.

Medicaid and most commercial plans include treatment, with different rules about what they approve. Network status changes without notice, so a center on last year's list is not necessarily on this year's. If a plan declines a level of care there is an appeal, and appeals are used more often than people expect.

It depends on the level of care. Outpatient care is designed to fit around a job. Where a workplace runs an assistance program it usually sits outside the management chain and keeps what it is told. Read what your own policy says before you tell anybody anything.