Denver Walk In Clinic Offers Medication-Assisted Treatment

The hardest part of starting medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder is often not the medication. It is the wait. A person who decides on a Tuesday that they are ready to stop using fentanyl may be given an intake appointment six weeks out.

Six weeks can be a long time to hold onto a decision like that. A new clinic in Denver, Colorado is built around closing that gap. The nonprofit WellPower has opened a walk-in medication-assisted treatment clinic at its Recovery Center on East 12th Avenue in Denver.

No appointment is required. People who qualify can leave with a prescription for buprenorphine, either as a daily film or as a monthly injection, and can meet with nurses, pharmacists, and peer specialists who have been through treatment themselves.

Why Timing Matters in Opioid Withdrawal

Buprenorphine cannot be started while a full opioid agonist is still active in the body. Doing so can trigger precipitated withdrawal, which is a sudden and severe onset of symptoms rather than a gradual one. That is why treatment protocols require a person to be in early withdrawal before the first dose.

This is the piece that catches people off guard, and it is the reason same-day access matters so much. Someone has to tolerate the beginning of withdrawal before medication can help, and then has to still be in a position to get that medication when the window opens.

For fentanyl specifically, the wait is shorter than many people expect. Denise Hosier, a nurse practitioner at WellPower, told Denverite that the timing depends on how much a person uses and how often, but that “give or take 24 hours, most people can start a titration of Suboxone.”

Understanding Buprenorphine, Suboxone, and Sublocade

Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist. It occupies the same receptors that fentanyl and heroin act on, which relieves withdrawal and blunts cravings, but it produces a weaker effect and has a ceiling that makes respiratory depression less likely at higher doses.

Suboxone combines buprenorphine with naloxone in a film taken daily under the tongue. Sublocade is an extended-release buprenorphine injection given monthly, which removes the need to take a dose every day.

Both are FDA approved for opioid use disorder. Methadone, the other long-established option, is a full agonist dispensed through licensed opioid treatment programs, which in most places means traveling to a clinic daily at the start of treatment.

Which medication fits depends on the person. Daily dosing gives more control over adjustments early on. A monthly injection removes the daily decision entirely, which some people find is exactly what they need.

How the Walk In Model Lowers the Barrier

The clinic operates on Wednesday afternoons, with the program hoping to extend its hours. Capacity is currently around six patients a week. It is supported by Medicaid, grants, and donations, and costs vary depending on a person’s insurance.

Two design choices are worth noting clinically. First, the program does not require someone to have stopped using other substances to begin addiction treatment.

Requiring total abstinence at intake screens out many of the people at highest overdose risk. Second, the clinic distributes naloxone and fentanyl test strips along with instruction on how to use them, which keeps someone alive during the period when treatment has not yet taken hold.

James Greer, WellPower’s president and chief executive, said in a statement that the clinic opened as overdose deaths rise again in Colorado and Denver even as national trends improve, and that the central challenge is making sure people can get help at the moment they are ready.

Finding Medical Detox and MAT in Denver, Colorado

If you are considering medication-assisted treatment, a few things are worth doing before you go:

• Ask whether the program requires abstinence from other substances at intake, since some do and some do not
• Ask how soon after your last use you should arrive, since arriving too early delays the first dose
• Ask whether both daily film and monthly injection are options
• Get naloxone now, before you need it, and make sure someone close to you knows how to use it

Detox.com lists medically supervised detox programs and MAT providers by state and city, including options in Denver and across Colorado. Search the directory for programs near you or call 800-996-6135(Sponsored) today.