Policies & Procedures
One of the most important issues in starting a new treatment center for substance abuse is policies and procedures. It is imperative to all state licensing boards that your facility create an acceptable set of policies and procedures. If you have multiple services such as social detoxification (DETOX), inpatient residential care, (RTC), partial hospitalization, (PHP), intensive outpatient, (IOP), and Residential Recovery homes, each of these modalities will need their own set of policies and procedures to submit to the state Department of Human Services in your respective state. You will not be able to become licensed to operate in your state without the policies and procedures.
Some of these policies and procedures are very voluminous in nature. There is a specific method by which they are written. Residential inpatient treatment, for instance, maybe 150-200 pages in length. They will cover several different items such as statement of purpose, mission statement, short term, long term goals, objectives, group therapy policies, organizational chart of staff, family visitation, clinical meetings and schedules, nutrition, referral policies, quality assurance, pricing and fees, insurance, to name a few. It is a very extensive document to create and needs to be done correctly or licensing will not be granted.
New U Recovery Consulting & Management has written dozens of policies and procedures for social detoxification, inpatient residential care, (RTC), partial hospitalization, (PHP), intensive outpatient, (IOP), and Residential Recovery homes for our clients. We know how they need to be put together and what it takes to get them to pass approval with the state Department of Human Services. Pricing for policies and procedures is between $4,000 and $10,000 depending on how much work and for what treatment modalities you plan to implement at your facility.
The Purpose of Policies and Procedures
Formalized, written policies and procedures fulfill a number of important purposes:
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Facilitate adherence with recognized professional practices.
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Promote compliance with regulations, statutes, and accreditation requirements for The Joint Commission
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Reduce practice variation.
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Standardize practices across multiple entities within a single health system.
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Serve as a resource for staff, particularly new personnel.
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Reduce reliance on memory, which, when overtaxed, has been shown to be a major source of human errors or oversights.
