Consulting Services For Addiction Treatment Facilities
Helping Addiction Programs Succeed with Neurofeedback
Why Add Neurofeedback to an Addiction Treatment Program?
In an industry with a 30-50% client drop-out rate, anything that increases clients’ length of stay improves abstinence rates and the bottom line of addiction treatment facilities as well. Research results prove Neurofeedback increases client retention. In fact, Dr. Corbett at Promises in Malibu, California confirmed these results with their reported 46% increase in the their clients’ average length of stay and a 60% reduction in clients leaving treatment against medical advice after they included neurofeedback as part of their program.
A 40%+ increase in your clients’ average length of stay is a significant impact all around.
Adding neurofeedback to an addiction program has other important benefits as well. Clients experience improvements in sleep quality and a reduction in anxiety and depression. Those who haven’t completely detoxed seem to have an easier time through that process. When clients feel better, are more focused, and have a more positive outlook about their treatment, they participate more in the solutions and less of the problems, are less obsessed with outside relationships, and are more present throughout the treatment process.
How Can the Center for Brain Training Help Addiction Centers Achieve These Gains?
- We help you identify the best equipment options to fit your facility and staffing choices.
- We help you hire or train the right staff to work with your clients.
- We help ensure that internal or outsourced staff are properly trained, receive ongoing support, and are providing optimal benefit to your clients.
- We help develop an education program for your staff and clients.
- We help ensure your staff understands neurofeedback and the important role it can play in your Center’s and your clients’ success.
- We teach your staff how to talk about neurofeedback with clients so clients understand the process. When staff and clients better understand neurofeedback, communicating appropriate feedback to maximize sessions is much easier.
Additionally, the Center for Brain Training helps you develop a plan to assess and supervise your neurofeedback program. Finding appropriate metrics and knowing how to implement them is crucial to determining the payback of including neurofeedback as part of an overall treatment strategy. Discussing billing strategies is also an important part of successfully including neurofeedback into an addiction program. We help you figure out all these components into a whole that makes sense.
Our goal is to help you plan and implement a neurofeedback program that will be successful for your clients and your business in less time and with fewer growing pains.
What Make the Addition of a Neurofeedback Program Successful?
Short-Term Goals:
- Improved abstinence rates
- Keeping clients in the program
- Identifying symptom improvement in individual clients
- Noticing better interaction between clients and staff
- Seeing fewer “fight or flight” responses in clients that lead to increased drop-out rates
- Hearing staff talk more and more knowledgeably about how neurofeedback enhances the overall program
Long-Term Goals:
- Seeing clear longer-range statistics that show improvements in clients’ average length of stay
- Hearing increased word-of-mouth accolades about your program
- Receiving inquiries as a result of advertising neurofeedback as part of the program
- Identifying a clear financial return from including neurofeedback into the program
Too Important to Fail?
Implementing any new program in a facility can be a major challenge. That’s doubly true for something few people know much about. Without the right effort and support, adding neurofeedback can end up being only marginally effective or, because of lack of understanding and skilled support, can fail entirely.
The potential return of neurofeedback on patient retention is so high for any addiction program, that it is important to ensure the implementation goes as smoothly as possible. That requires a commitment from top management as well as staff. It also requires working with someone who is knowledgeable about neurofeedback, skilled at implementing it into existing program, and trained at educating staff members on how to maximize its effectiveness.
Implementation
It can take time to implement such a program successfully, and it takes some effort by the organization to track success carefully and adjust the system if and when needed. Many organizations make the mistake of committing as little as possible to new projects until they prove their payback. If adding neurofeedback isn’t fully planned and committed to, even on a pilot basis, it will not likely achieve as large a return. Supervision is important, and having someone dedicated to helping support the neurofeedback segment of the program is crucial.
Michael Cohen, the key consultant for implementing neurofeedback into addiction facilities, has 16 years of experience in neurofeedback. In that time, he has helped implement neurofeedback into facilities of all sizes, including the 275-bed Caron Foundation, has taught key industry courses in neurofeedback, and has trained hundreds of now-qualified clinicians. He was a systems consultant for 20 years prior to his 16 years in neurofeedback. He knows the stumbling blocks of incorporating neurofeedback into a program and how to most smoothly work through them.
Two Examples of Research About Addiction and Neurofeedback
> Neurofeedback and Crack Cocaine Dependence