Nassau University Medical Center expanding substance abuse treatment program

Nassau University Medical Center will receive $8 million to expand and centralize a treatment program for patients suffering from addiction.

The funding comes from $60 million Nassau is expected to spend over the next four years from the settlement of a landmark lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors. Nassau has distributed $7.6 million to various groups, county spokesman Chris Boyle said. The Nassau Interim Finance Authority approved the latest funding Thursday.

NUMC, Nassau County's only public hospital, will create a "wrap-around substance abuse treatment" unit to serve patients who need beds for detoxing and rehab and track their health after they are discharged from the hospital.

NUMC has licenses for 50 chemical dependency beds — 20 for detox and 30 for rehabilitation — but not enough staff to service all of them, said Dr. Constantine Ioannou, chair of the hospital's department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. The funding will allow NUMC to staff those 50 beds, plus an additional five for detox.

A central referral unit — a 24/7 assessment unit for behavior health — would be created in a resident-run clinic.

It will help coordinate patient care "from one step of treatment to the next," Ioannou said.

"Right now people go through various front doors. They could go through the medical ER, they could go through the psych ER, they could go through outpatient clinics, they could go through trauma services. And the central service will be the one place to capture all these cases," Ioannou said. "If they are indicated for detox, we put them in detox. If they need rehab, we put them in rehab, if they need outpatient services, we work on getting those services."

He continued: "If you have a chemical dependency problem, and you walk into the perimeter of NUMC at any time of day, you will be seen and evaluated by people with expertise in this disease."

NUMC will use the funding to hire nurses, physician assistants and a director for the centralized program. Hospital officials say NUMC is the only inpatient detox unit in the county, and is its only provider of a hospital-based, 28-day rehab service.

In their application for the funding, hospital officials said the program, as it stands now, requires NUMC to refer many patients to outside rehab providers.

The current setup, according to the application, "allows us to address the needs of the individual for a finite amount of time, and we then must refer to providers outside of our own network. This creates multiple barriers to care."

In 2022, there were at least 448 patients who were "not deemed appropriate for detox admission and referred elsewhere," the application said.

By Scott Eidler

scott.eidler@newsday.com@ScottEidler

Scott Eidler is a deputy editor for the towns department at Newsday. Scott has worked at Newsday since 2012 and previously covered municipal government and education.