Palm Beach County to spend millions to help people with addiction

Settlement from opioid distributors to pay $7.7 million a year toward ‘person-centered, recovery-oriented care’

More than $120 million from pharmaceutical companies and distributors is pouring into Palm Beach County coffers.

After months of deliberation, the county now has a 15-year plan for spending it.

Catch up quick: The money is from legal settlements to compensate governments across the nation for costs of the opioid epidemic. The aim is to help people with substance abuse disorder return to substance-free lives. It will be reviewed annually.

How it works: It means helping them find a safe place to live; overcome seemingly innocuous obstacles, such as obtaining a driver’s license; and get a job.

Here’s the county’s plan on spending $7.7 million a year for the next 15 years:

• Community education and training: $3 million. Focused on family support, community engagement, drug disposal, public awareness and screening.
• Housing, transportation, employment and recovery: $1.89 million. The county has created recovery community centers to provide “one-stop shopping” for “person-centered, recovery-oriented care.” 
• Neutral care coordination, $1.59 million. That means a single point of entry for assessment referrals, initial level of care determination, coordination across clinical and non-clinical care and payment for some care.
• “Deep End” in-patient long term care for women, pregnant women and women with children: $775,745.
• Syringe exchange expansion: $500,000.
• 5 percent goes to county administrative costs.

How we got here: The ease of obtaining opioids made Florida a starting point for distribution of pills throughout the nation until Florida changed the laws and cut off the spigot around 2010. Palm Beach County became a haven for treatment centers, many illicitly overcharging insurance companies for unneeded care.

While other communities have been criticized for misspending the proceeds from the class-action lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies and retailers such as Teva, Walgreens and CVS, an advisory committee led by the recovery community spent two years here developing a person-centered approach that aimed to end the “treat and street” approach of sending recovering addicts into the community after a few weeks of treatment with no support. 

At a May 21 County Commission meeting, commissioners shared their own tragic family stories as they supported the plan. On Oct. 22, they endorsed the spending approach. 

Update: Stet News reported in May that the county would have $148 million to spend over 20 years based on a county chart that showed $25.5 million in hand from years one and two and $122.5 million to come in the next 18 years. The county has updated its calculations to show that it will be getting $122.5 million over 15 years.