If you have a loved one who needs addiction treatment, you may find yourself staring at websites and wondering what all of the different treatment levels mean. At Safe Harbor Recovery Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, we want to help you decipher all of the different options you might see.
Inpatient Versus Outpatient
You may already be familiar with the concept of inpatient or residential care, where someone lives at the treatment center around the clock while they are getting help, versus outpatient referring to treatment that occurs while they are living off-site.
One option may be preferable to the other due to one or more of the following:
- The intensity of the person’s substance use
- Lack of safe, supportive home environment
- Too many distractions or triggers at home
- Need for an extra supportive environment
- The need to continue working while receiving treatment
- Higher cost of inpatient care
- There are too many obligations at home to be gone 24/7 for weeks on end
- Transportation barriers that would make it difficult to get between home and treatment daily
What Are All of These Letters?
You may notice that some programs offer IOP or PHP. These are levels of care that may be recommended for someone who does not need or is not able to do inpatient care.
After residential care, this is the next highest level, for people who need daily support, but not 24/7 supervision. At Safe Harbor Recovery Center, clients in PHP come to treatment every morning, Monday-Friday, participate in structured group and individual therapy sessions, weekly medical check-ins, music and equine therapy, yoga, and other programming, before they go home in the afternoon. This is a great option for people who are stepping down from residential treatment or stepping up from intensive outpatient care.
This is the lowest level of care offered at Safe Harbor. These clients participate in treatment for three hours at a time, three nights per week. They receive therapy, counseling, and skill-building sessions with a focus on:
- Relapse prevention strategies
- Mental health and addiction psychoeducation
- Mindfulness
- Holistic wellness techniques
- Case management
- Discharge planning
Can I Do a 12-Step Group Instead?
Recovery groups like AA or NA are great, and we definitely encourage people to utilize the lived expertise of their peers, which is a huge asset of these groups. It is important to remember, however, that 12-Step programs are not the same thing as treatment, as they do not have trained medical, mental health, and chemical health professionals available to offer the most current, evidence-based treatments or administer medications to support recovery.
Which Treatment Option Is Faster?
That really depends. Inpatient treatment programs are usually shorter; however, you may need to step down to a lower level of care after inpatient treatment is complete. If you aren’t at the right level of care to meet your needs, you may be at increased risk for relapses and need to complete treatment again, so that could take you more time overall to establish long-term sobriety. It’s more important to find the right level of care than to find a level of care you can do fast.
Which Level of Treatment Is Better?
Recovery is unique to each person, so it’s impossible to say what is best for a specific individual without taking into consideration their unique needs and goals. That’s why all guests at Safe Harbor receive a comprehensive assessment as part of the admissions process. This assessment identifies:
- Strengths
- Needs
- Abilities
- Preferences
- Diagnoses
- Medical concerns
- Cognitive issues
Using the comprehensive assessment, an individualized treatment plan is developed for each client.
At Safe Harbor Recovery Center, we recognize that each client is far more than their addiction, and that’s why our treatment plans can include nutritional, exercise, medical, therapy, sleep, and other needs, beyond just chemical health treatment. We want to support the whole person and their overall wellness.