Is Your Program Punitive?
Fill Out a Grievance Report — It’s Time To Educate Them!
Does Your Program Treat Patients With Dignity?
Fill Out a Compliment Report — Let Them Know They are Appreciated!
The
Grievance Report Project is an ongoing project used to educate the Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) community about quality treatment. Programs can no longer hide behind a veil of patient confidentiality or call degrading policies quality treatment. The new accreditation organizations will be interested in these reports.
The Dole-Nyswander Program worked because it was a caring program with a sense of community and that is what needs to be brought back to MAT. NAMA Recovery will use the
Grievance Report Process to report programs to various agencies for further investigation. This project will not work unless patients themselves tell us about their program. So NAMA Recovery needs you to participate.
Grievance Reports are Not Only for Programs!
A Grievance Report can be filed on any agency, institution, program or professional that does not treat you with common dignity and respect. Here are some examples of Grievance Reports that you can file.
| hospital | inadequate pain medication |
| school | won’t accept methadone patients |
| family court | any involvement because of your medication |
|
probation or parole officer |
have to withdraw from your medication |
|
social worker or clinical psychologist |
have to withdraw from your medication to receive treatment |
There are two kinds of grievance reports: a General Report and an Incident Report.
General Report
A General Grievance Report details the situation at a program, service or agency and usually involves their policy. A General Report does not always require investigation or follow up. You are simply reporting the policy or a situation at a program, service, agency, etc. In some instances these policies are discriminatory towards patients. When a policy violates the constitution or law NAMA Recovery will notify any oversight agencies or institutions and begin procedures to end the policy. An example of this kind of General Report would be a homeless shelter that does not allow MAT patients. This is a direct violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
When NAMA Recovery has collected several General Grievance Reports about a program an inquiry will be made to confirm if the policy has been changed or not. The program’s reply will be shared with the patients that have made the reports and if necessary their will be further investigation. This type of report helps to change policy at your program because it makes program staff re-think policy that may not be doing what was originally intended.
Incident Report
If you are having trouble with your program you can report a specific incident. Incident Reports are for specific problems that you are having with your program
right now. Other examples of an Incident Grievance Report include take home medication schedule or dose change, either increase or decrease. Usually patients are having trouble because they do not know program policy, state or federal regulations, or resources that they can use to make the program work for them. NAMA Recovery believes in empowering patients with information that will help them achieve the recovery goals they have set for themselves. By filing an Incident Report you will be assisted in: (1) knowing the regulations that apply, and (2) how to use regulations and “resources” to get a positive result.
Some Incident Grievance Reports are being filed at a critical point. An example of this is the patient that is being disharged from their program. If this is the case after filing the Incident Grievance Report send an email to Claude Hopkins, the Grievance Coordinator. The sooner that Claude Hopkins starts to intervene with a critical issue the more likely your chance at having a positive result.
CONFIDENTIALITY POLICY
All information that is provided will be held strictly confidential in the same manner as the patient protections described in the U.S. Federal Confidentiality Regulations 42 CFR and the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (the Privacy Rule) as established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPPA). In order to assist you at the maximum level of follow-up and outcome, we do request certain personal information. However, if you do not want us to disclose your name for any reason, we will honor your wishes.
How to file a Grievance Report:
-
You can print out a Grievance Report and Authorization to Release Information from our website.
Click Here
to go there. -
You can download a Grievance Report and Authorization to Release Information in pdf format.
Click below to download:
Grievance Report and Medical Release
Grievance Report
Medical Release
Grievance Reports can be sent to:
Claude Hopkins, RMA CMA, Grievance Coordinator
Or mailed to:
National Alliance of Medication Assisted Recovery
435 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Or faxed to:
(212) 595-nama/6262
Programs and Professionals Need Compliments Too
Lets not do the same thing that programs are at fault of doing — providing only Negative Feedback to Patients. Programs work on a Negative Reinforcement System which means if you do something wrong you get punished. They would produce more positive outcomes if they worked on a Positive Reinforcement Systems which means Rewarding Patients for Progress. Lets work on Positive Reinforcement and let programs know when they are doing the right things. That is what a Compliment Report is for.
Fill Out a Compliment Report Now!