Jill Schramm/MDN Ideal Option, a medication-assisted addiction treatment center, operates at 3520 N. Broadway.

An out-patient clinic that opened last year to offer treatment for substance abuse disorder is making a difference for a number of Minot-area residents.

Ideal Option provides medication-assisted treatment through prescriptions for buprenorphine, often sold as Suboxone.

“It has been thoroughly studied and accepted by the medical community,” said Jane Sveen, physician assistant with Ideal Option, Bismarck. “This is the treatment of choice, and medication-assisted treatment combined with psycho-social therapies and community-based recovery support is the gold standard for treating opioid addiction.”

Michael, a local patient, finds the treatment works for him. He had been involved in a vehicle crash more than a decade ago that led to an addiction to pain medicine.

“I spent a lot of money on it,” he said of his addiction, which led to cravings that gave him headaches and left him miserable. Moving to Minot a couple of years ago, he eventually decided it was time to end the addiction and contacted Ideal Option.

As soon as he started treatment, he said, “The cravings were gone.”

“It makes you feel like you can function,” he added.

Treatment wasn’t without challenges because his body had to undo a decade’s worth of addiction, he said. However, he’s now financially in a better position from not having to acquire pain medicine and from increased productivity at work, he said. He is pursuing a commercial driver’s license to improve his job options, and he said his relationships with the people in his life are more stable.

“It’s definitely paid off,” Michael says more than a year into treatment. “I would definitely recommend it. It’s really, really a good program.”

Sveen said Ideal Option welcomes more residents like Michael, who are ready to take that step toward treatment.

“We’re here to help them. We see this as a chronic disease. It is not a moral failing,” Sveen said. “This is not something that can be cured quickly. It is something that takes work, and we expect there to be problems and relapses and difficulties. We want to work with them and help them figure it all out, and over and over again, I’ve been so amazed at what people can figure out and overcome and make better.”

Ideal Option is one of the nation’s largest providers of office-based opioid addiction treatment. Founded in 2012 by two emergency medicine physicians, Ideal Option operates more than 65 outpatient clinics in eight states. It opened clinics in Bismarck, Grand Forks and Fargo in February 2018. Clinics in Minot and Williston followed.

Ideal Option is the only Minot clinic dedicated to prescribing buprenorphine, although another healthcare clinic does limited prescribing and another clinic provides methadone.

Minot patients of Ideal Option initially see a medical provider at the Bismarck location. They then are able to continue services at the Minot office via telemedicine.

“We have seven providers in North Dakota. There are also other providers within our company that are licensed in North Dakota,” Sveen said. “We hope that we can somehow reach the patients that need this help and build up the clinics, and that we can have providers in all those places. Telemedicine works, but it is nicer to see people in person.”

For each prescription fill, patients come to the clinic for testing and basic health check of vital signs. Patients begin with a couple of clinic visits a week. After three consecutive negative drug tests, they need to come only once a week, which will gradually reduce to once a month as they continue in compliance with the program. Patients receive prescriptions that can be filled at their regular pharmacies.

“I have never seen a medication work so well for so many people. It is truly amazing. It really does help,” Sveen said. “It really makes them feel normal. It gives them back their life.”

The prescription medicine latches to the receptors targeted by opioids but does not produce a euphoria or high. It does block opioids from attaching to those receptors, though, so taking a drug such as heroin would not have an effect on the person.

“We also recommend people have counseling,” Sveen said. “We work with them to find counseling and also refer them to other services they need to try to get their life back in order.”

Studies show medication has a success rate of over 80% and counseling alone has a success rate below 20%, she said. However, together, medication and counseling offer the best chance of success.

Because opioid use can create dysfunction in the brain’s mechanisms, continued buprenorphine treatment typically is needed to address that condition long-term.

“This is a chronic disease,” Sveen said. “People should take a dose that makes them comfortable for as long as it helps them. We want them to feel that they can go about their normal life without thinking about drugs.”

Sherry Nichols, a licensed practical nurse, works with patients at the Minot clinic.

“We help all walks of life,” Nichols said, noting patients have included people who are homeless, mothers and business owners. “A majority of our patients have their lives together. They just got sidetracked by the disease of addiction.”

Medication-assisted treatment has changed lives because people are able to hold jobs that they might not have been able to in the past, she said. To accommodate that work, the clinic adjusted its hours. Current hours are Monday 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. and Wednesday and Thursday 5 to 8 p.m.

Nichols said efforts are made to get people immediate appointments. Appointments are available by calling 877-522-1275.

Insurance, including Medicaid, does cover the treatment, or patients can self pay. Clinic staff can assist patients when they call for an appointment regarding any insurance coverage questions.

Sveen said Ideal Option sees opportunity to reach more people needing treatment by working within the jail system. Ideal Option has conducted promising, preliminary pilot projects in jails in Washington state.

“There’s been a great deal of success with that program, and that may capture more people that are in need,” Sveen said. Ideal Option has been meeting with officials in Burleigh and Morton counties about establishing a program in those jails.