How to Improve Your OTP Retention Rates

Patient retention is a top concern for opioid treatment programs, and rates vary dramatically across the board.

Since retention is a crucial metric for both OTP financial outcomes and patient care outcomes, it’s important to think critically and strategically about the factors that will increase patient engagement and help them continue with your program.

In this article, we’ll explore five valuable strategies for increasing your retention rates while supporting better patient outcomes.

Factors Impacting OTP Patient Retention Rates

Studies show that retention rates vary significantly across different OTPs. One review in the Journal of Addictive Diseases found that at the three-month mark, patient retention rates range from just 19% up to 94%.

Patients receiving methadone treatment tend to have better retention than those receiving buprenorphine and naloxone.

Even among methadone patients, retention will vary depending on social determinants of health such as:

• Access to housing

• Age

• Availability of take-home doses

• Employment status

• Patient comorbidities

• Transportation times to get to the clinic

• And more

5 Strategies for Increasing Patient Retention at Your OTP

1. Incorporate a Whole-Person Approach to Care

If you’re looking for ways to improve your patient retention rates, start by considering the entire patient experience. It’s not just about what happens inside your clinic; outside factors often have the biggest impact on patient outcomes. 

In a recent advisory on the benefits of a low-barrier model of care for SUD, SAMHSA highlighted the importance of helping OTP patients access a wide range of medical, behavioral, and social services.

These may include counseling, peer support, mental health care, housing support, education, and vocational services. If your program does not offer these services on-site, consider developing partnerships within your community that will make it easier for care teams to refer patients to the resources they need. 

To better support patients covered by Medicaid, focus on building relationships with your local Federally Qualified Health Center or care managers from Medicaid Managed Care organizations.

Social care referral platforms like Unite Us and FindHelp are other useful tools for finding resources that support whole-person care.

2. Focus on Developing Your Employees

It may seem counterintuitive to improve patient retention by focusing on employees. However, developing your employees will directly impact the patient experience in two key ways.

First, building a strong employee culture will reduce staff turnover. Patients will feel more supported and able to rely more fully on their care teams when they have the opportunity to build long-term relationships with the people delivering their care.

Plus, helping your employees feel invested and passionate about the work they’re doing will only improve the quality of care they provide, and patients will notice the difference.

In particular, we recommend training OTPs in evidence-based models that drive person-centered care. This may include skill building in areas such as motivational interviewing and trauma-informed care, along with efforts to empower your staff to use those skills in their daily interactions.

3. Learn About Your Patients and Respond Accordingly

Because each person’s recovery journey is different, it’s important to build flexibility into your programs that allow care teams to respond to patient needs.

For example, SAMHSA recommends that, when possible, OTPs should determine visit frequency based on clinical stability, rather than expecting patients to adhere to an organization-wide schedule that may not meet their individual needs.

You may also consider revising your service offerings to support flexibility and empower your team to adapt to individual needs. Useful changes may include adding walk-in services, providing multi-level care within a single program, and using evidence-based practices to support a variety of recovery goals.

4. Issue Take-Homes When the Benefits Outweigh the Risks

Take-home methadone flexibilities are proven to increase patient engagement and retention.

In the 41 states that concur with the SAMHSA take-home flexibility extension, OTPs can use SAMHSA guidelines to determine whether or not a patient is eligible for take-home doses, and how many doses to issue them at a time.

To learn more about SAMHSA’s 6-point criteria for evaluating take-home eligibility, read this article.

Ultimately, SAMHSA instructs providers to consider “whether the therapeutic benefits of unsupervised doses outweigh the risks.”

5. Use a Remote Dosing Solution for Take-Home Doses

To help you access the retention benefits of take-home doses without adding unnecessary risk, consider using a remote dosing solution like Sonara Health.

Sonara’s platform allows patients to record their remote doses for their care teams to review, reducing the risk of diversion or misuse while removing some of the barriers that make it difficult for patients to adhere to their treatment programs.

By empowering clinics with real-time insights to make informed treatment decisions, Sonara builds trust between OTP patients and their care teams, improving program retention rates in the process.

To learn more about Sonara Health’s remote dosing solution, please contact us here.