How Sonara Helped This Patient Earn More Take-Homes

For patients in opioid treatment programs, frequent clinic visits can be an enormous inconvenience — and in some cases, create barriers to long-term treatment success.

And though the benefits of issuing take-home methadone doses are shown to outweigh the risks for many patients, OTPs often hesitate to issue the maximum number of take-homes allowed under SAMHSA guidelines (28 doses), even to patients who have been in treatment for years.

Take Andrea*, for example. After eight years of treatment at the same Florida OTP, Andrea was still required to return to the clinic every week to check in and receive her take-homes, along with staying available for random callbacks twice a year.

By enrolling in Sonara Health, Andrea has gained access to more take-homes, reducing the time and money spent on travel.

Extensive Travel Times and Daily Clinic Visits

When Andrea first enrolled in her OTP, she was confident the benefits would outweigh any inconvenience.

“I knew I didn’t have to worry about anything really anymore," she explained. "I just knew I was going to start feeling better and not being sick, and just being able to function in life." 

When she first started treatment, Andrea visited the clinic every day to take her methadone doses in person.

"In the beginning, you have to go every day and make sure you have clean urine,” she shared. "In the beginning, I was living closer [than I am now]. But in the morning, it was still pretty hell to commute.”

Over time, Andrea was able to earn take-home doses, reducing her in-person visits to one per week.Low barrier care focuses on making services as available and accessible as possible, while also minimizing the burdens placed on patients in treatment.

Sonara’s Solution for Remote Dosing with Confidence

Recently, Andrea’s OTP began a partnership with Sonara Health, allowing patients to use Sonara’s Virtual Dosing Window™ to record their take-home doses on their phones or computers for their care teams to review.

This can give OTPs the confidence to issue more take-homes, knowing that they’ll still have insight into their patients’ daily dosing and can intervene if they decide a higher level of care is needed.

When Andrea learned about Sonara, she was excited by the opportunity to potentially receive more take-homes at a time. She also recognized that Sonara was a useful alternative to callbacks, since some clinics use Sonara in place of doing random checks when patients have to bring their methadone bottles to the clinic to be counted. 

Because she uses Sonara, Andrea now receives two weeks’ worth of take-home doses each time she visits the clinic, instead of the one week of take-homes she received previously. This has been a major benefit now that she lives 20 miles away from her OTP and usually has to bring her young son with her to appointments.

“I have a not quite 18-month-year old. He’s very active… So, he gets very frustrated very quick,” she explained. “I’ve never had a problem with going when I’m supposed to and everything, but it’s easier for me to go every two weeks versus every week.”

Easy-to-Use Technology and a Supportive Care Team 

Andrea was happy to find that she had no problems using Sonara’s application, which walks patients through the process of recording their remote methadone doses and then submitting the videos for their care teams to review.

“It’s pretty straightforward. I don’t see why there should be a problem with it or anything like that” she said. “It’s pretty easy.”

She’s also found that the experience has not impacted her relationship with her care team, and she still feels connected to two counselors who have been at the OTP since she first started treatment.

If any patients are considering enrolling in Sonara, Andrea encourages them to take the next step.

“It’s definitely worthwhile if you’re far from the clinic or having a hard time getting there, or you have to take the bus or anything like that,” she shared. “It just lessens your time in travel and money and expense. It really does help.”

If you’re interested in partnering with Sonara to make our remote dosing solution available at your OTP, please contact us today. And if you’re a patient who wants to find out when Sonara becomes available at an OTP near you, make sure to join our waitlist.

*Name changed for patient anonymity