EAST TENNESSEE HEALTHCARE HOLDINGS INC
1021 W Oakland Avenue, Johnson City, TN 37604 overmountainrecovery.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: To provide quality treatment for those qualified persons who are addicted to opiates and related chemicals. Our philosophy is the goal of treatment should be to assist these individuls in attaining the highest level of functioning possible in physical, emotional, vocational and social domains.

To operate an outpatient opioid treatment program to treat opioid use disorder and provide recovery for each and every patient. All of us, from our program leadership to our staff members, aim to reduce the burden of addiction on our region. We are focused not just on providing a service, but on making our community a healthier and safer place to live, work, learn and do business.

East Tennessee Healthcare Holdings, Inc. d/b/a Overmountain Recovery (OMR) is a not-for-profit outpatient opioid treatment program in Johnson City, Tennessee. In 2016, Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA) and East Tennessee State University Research Foundation (ETSU) formed OMR to treat people in its service area with heroin, morphine and prescription opioid addictions, including high-acuity individuals with co-occurring mental and physical health conditions, as well as vulnerable populations such as women with substance-exposed pregnancies. The service area consists of 39 cities and 11 counties including: Carter, Greene, Hancock, Hawkins, Johnson, Sullivan, Unicoi and Washington in Tennessee and Lee, Scott and Washington in Virginia, including the City of Bristol, Virginia. In April 2020 the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported the following findings:According to the CDC WONDER (Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research) database, in 2018 there were 1,307 overdose deaths involving opioids in Tennessee-a rate of 19.9 deaths per 100,000 persons. In 2018, Tennessee providers wrote 81.8 opioid prescriptions for every 100 persons. Although this is a 13% decline in Tennessees opioid prescribing rate from 2017, Tennessee had the third highest prescribing rate in the country and was 59% higher than the average U.S. rate of 51.4 prescriptions. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) or Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal Syndrome (NOWS) may occur when a woman uses opioids during pregnancy. The incidence rate of NAS/NOWS in Tennessee in 2017 was 16.4 cases per 1,000 hospital births. In 2016, the national incidence rate of NAS/NOWS was 7 cases per 1,000 hospital births and hospital costs for NAS/NOWS births totaled $572.7 million after adjusting for inflation.OMRs Opioid Treatment Program represents a unique comprehensive, innovative, holistic model of care for this patient population by bringing together the local academic and research resources of ETSU; coupled with the medical care expertise and capital resources of MSHA. These two entities have also partnered with Frontier Health to provide therapeutic and recovery-based services.OMR is only one component of a larger focus to incorporate education, outreach, research, and evaluation, all aimed at making a significant difference in the management of the chronic disease of addiction. OMR is an entity that emphasizes evidence-based, long-term treatment that addresses substance abuse disorder (SUD) as a chronic, relapsing disease. Both ETSU and MSHA have long-time roots in the community. ETSU, founded in 1911, is a state-supported, coeducational institution. ETSU currently has a student population of approximately 15,000 undergraduate, graduate, medical and pharmacy students. Although the majority of students are from Tennessee and the surrounding southeastern region, ETSU has students enrolled from states across the country and over 50 nations around the globe. The main campus is located in Johnson City, Tennessee with satellite campuses in Kingsport, Elizabethton, and Sevierville. ETSU has a very strong health care focus with colleges of pharmacy, clinical and rehabilitative health sciences, nursing, public health, and medicine.Mountain States Health Alliance, founded in 1998, is part of a large, integrated, not-for-profit health care system based in Johnson City, Tennessee. In February 2018, Mountain States Health Alliance (MSHA) and Wellmont Health System (WHS) merged to form Ballad Health, a tax-exempt entity and parent company of MSHA and WHS. Ballad operates 21 hospitals, long-term care facilities, home care and hospice services, retail pharmacies, outpatient services and comprehensive medical management corporations.Founded in 1957, Frontier Health provides behavioral health services, offering treatment for mental health, co-occurring, and substance abuse problems, recovery and vocational rehabilitation, and developmental and intellectual disabilities services. Frontier Health has 65 professionally staffed facilities located in 12 counties throughout Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. They provide both individual and group recovery-based counseling to OMR patients. OMR is committed to its patients recovery. OMR provides care that is customized to their patients personal needs and takes into consideration housing, education, employment, legal issues, security, transportation and other areas in order to gain a complete picture of the individual. Another key facet of patient-centric approach to care is to have a reliable way of getting input from patients. OMR convenes focus groups of patients who meet bi-monthly with the director and have recovery life coaches who conduct peer groups, including establishing an Overmountain group on the TN Recovery app. In FY19, OMR admitted 253 patients into their program. During the 12 months ending June 30, 2020, OMR admitted 203 patients. Even though this is a decrease in the monthly average of 19.8%, the average monthly census increased from 203 patients in FY19 to 309 in FY20, which is an increase of 52%.OMRs Community Advisory Committee meets quarterly to keep the community abreast of what is happening at OMR. OMR hosted a booth at Adoration, an event on ETSUs main campus and hosted a booth at the Meet the Mountains Festival in Johnson City, Tennessee. During FY20, OMRs medical director spoke at Tough Pill to Swallow: Addressing the Epidemic of Prescription Drug Abuse. This conference was offered by ETSUs Office of Continuing Medical Education. ETSU 3rd year medical students rotate through OMR, providing benefit to its patients as well as training for future providers in the treatment of addiction.OMR also partnered with the Department of Health to provide Hepatitis C rapid testing.Overmountain regularly measures and reports on the performance of its program. OMR tracks both efficiency and effectiveness measures. Because of this dedication to quality, OMR earned a three-year accreditation from CARF (the Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities). CARF three-year accreditation is the highest accreditation level awarded to organizations like Overmountain.To receive three-year accreditation from CARF, organizations are put through a rigorous ongoing process that includes, among other requirements, live on-site surveys. These requirements ensure OMRs program meets CARFs high standards of quality and accountability. Overmountain Recovery was also awarded the State Opioid Response (SOR) grant in December 2018 and was renewed in September 2019. The SOR grant is a hub and spoke model with Overmountain being the first hub out of four across the state of TN. Spokes include Woodridge (MSHA inpatient behavioral health hospital), Families Free, Frontier Health, Appalachian Counseling, CCS, and Red Legacy. This has allowed us to help many patients who could not otherwise afford treatment. The grant includes funding that allows patients assistance with transportation, social services, help with utilities and community awareness of the services OMR provides for treatment of opioid addiction. A third-party research agency, Evaluation, Management, and Training Associates, is conducting research on the State Opioid Response Grant at Overmountain Recovery. This research is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA). The research project is titled Evaluation of the Tennessee Strategic Opioid Response (TN SOR): Changing Behavior, Coordinating Care, and Restoring Lives. These assessments are conducted at intake, at 6-month review and at discharge from the grant. Throughout the fiscal year, these data were used to track trends in opioid use and effectiveness of treatment under the SOR grant. All data and reports are provided directly to SAMSHA and to the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.With the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic, OMR made several adjustments to its program with guidance from the State Opioid Treatment Authority (SOTA). Conference calls were conducted Bi-weekly with the SOTA and other clinics across the state. Per SOTAs request, OMR would close on Sundays for deep cleaning. Patients received more take-home medication than would normally be allowed, most counseling sessions are conducted via tele-health and treatment team is conducted via conference call. If patients present with positive COVID-19 symptoms they are dosed at their vehicle and advised to visit one of Ballad Healths testing centers. Patients are required to wear masks at all times and team members are required to follow CDC PPE guidelines.

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