Addiction treatment is a complex and highly individualized process. Keeping track of the different types of treatment involved in achieving sobriety can be overwhelming. Case management is a support system that coordinates the many components of a person’s treatment plan.
Case managers generally serve as client liaisons during substance abuse treatment and early recovery, but each organization’s setup determines the exact scope of case management.
Let’s take a closer look at how case management works, why it’s helpful having a case manager, and how this benefits recovery.
How Case Management Works
Addiction treatment disperses across an array of services, each requiring a different level and length of care. Added to this complex continuum is the demand for a set of services suited to each client’s unique needs. Case management is a mechanism used to help tailor treatment plans to client needs, manage the multitude of services these plans draw from and ensure a client’s best interest is, and remains, the center point of the plan.
In simple terms, case management centralizes addiction treatment while promoting a client-centered point of view.
Case managers are integral members of a substance abuse treatment team.
What Does a Case Manager Do?
On the road to recovery, case managers act as traffic cops: they keep things flowing smoothly when the many sides of a treatment plan intersect, and their community ties and people skills help keep treatment on track.
To show the dynamic partnership case managers and clients have, here’s a list of common aspects of a case manager’s role:
- Well-informed and supportive of a diverse, interdisciplinary treatment approach.
- Give input during intake assessments and the design of an individualized treatment plan.
- Coordinate referrals and appointments between mental, behavioral, and physiological health treatment modalities – and keeps current on best practices in these fields.
- Have a broad network of community ties and referrals.
- High regard for family and community support.
- Skilled at supporting the transition back into society.
- Cultural sensitivity.
- Good at meeting clients “where they are”.
- Plenty of patience and compassion.
Put together, it’s clear that having a case manager in your corner is valuable: You’re supported by someone with addiction treatment know-how and who lightens the logistical load of dispersed care.
The core benefit? Clients with a single point of contact — a case manager — stay more focused on their recovery. Research supports this.
Benefits of Addiction Case Management
Studies highlight two significant benefits of substance abuse case management:
1. Higher Retention Rates
Case management, at its core, aims to keep people engaged in their treatment. Research demonstrates case management leads to better treatment retention and retention links to better outcomes.
The gist is that case management stacks the odds in favor of toughing out treatment to reach recovery.
2. Co-Occurring Disorders Are Better Addressed
Weaving treatment for overlapping problems into an addiction-focused treatment plan isn’t straightforward. Skilled case managers carry out this crucial task.
Substance abuse is quite often a co-occurring disorder. Studies show that treating comorbidities all at once makes achieving (and maintaining) sobriety more likely.
Case management is beneficial to, and often instrumental in, holistic addiction treatment.
Case Management at Silicon Beach Treatment Center
Silicon Beach offers treatment for substance abuse and co-occurring disorders. At our LA addiction treatment center one of the first things we do to help kickstart your sobriety is appoint your case manager.
Your case manager works with you from day one, pinpointing your needs, tailoring treatment plans to meet those needs, and steering treatment to help you stay the course. Your case manager also acts as a liaison to your recovery while you’re in treatment. This means you have a knowledgeable partner, every step of the way. You’ll find more info on case management at Silicon Beach here.
Why choose Silicon Beach Treatment Center for drug treatment in LA? Our intensive outpatient program sets us apart. If you need IOP in LA that isn’t like the rest, let’s talk.