Creating a relapse prevention program in your treatment center.

Every treatment center in the nation treats relapse-prone patients. The question is whether they are going to do it well or poorly. Many treatment programs, unfortunately, deal poorly with relapse-prone patients because they are not using specialized relapse prevention therapy methods. As a result, the treatment failure rates that managed care is increasingly laying at our doorstep continue to be significant.

This is unfortunate because, as pointed out in the two previous articles in this series (March/April and May/June issues), it is no more expensive to treat patients using relapse prevention therapy than it is to use traditional recovery methods. And, the difference in improved outcomes with relapse-prone patients can radically increase recovery rates while lowering the long-term costs of treatment.

Any treatment program that is serious about effectively treating relapse-prone patients needs to develop a specific policy for dealing with relapse. Such an enlightened policy recognizes …