Substance Use Treatment and Recovery Team Addiction Consultation Service (START ACS)

An Addiction Consultation Service for Opioid Use Disorder

Karen Chan Osilla, Allison J. Ober, Isabel Leamon, Gabrielle Messineo, Itai Danovitch

ToolPublished Apr 22, 2025

This guide describes the Substance Use Treatment and Recovery Team Addiction Consultation Service (START ACS), a hospital-based service that aims to enhance treatment initiation and ensure successful connections to follow-up care for people with opioid use disorder. The guide is intended to help care managers (CMs) and addiction medicine specialists (AMSs) who are implementing the START ACS.

First, the authors provide an overview of the CM and AMS roles and workflows. They then describe in greater detail the responsibilities of CMs and AMSs and include scripts that can be referenced in conducting care management during the inpatient stay and when following up with the patient after discharge. Finally, additional resources are provided, including assessment templates and patient handouts.

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RAND Style Manual

Osilla, Karen Chan, Allison J. Ober, Isabel Leamon, Gabrielle Messineo, and Itai Danovitch, Substance Use Treatment and Recovery Team Addiction Consultation Service (START ACS): An Addiction Consultation Service for Opioid Use Disorder, RAND Corporation, TL-A3791-1, 2025. As of April 22, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TLA3791-1.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Osilla, Karen Chan, Allison J. Ober, Isabel Leamon, Gabrielle Messineo, and Itai Danovitch, Substance Use Treatment and Recovery Team Addiction Consultation Service (START ACS): An Addiction Consultation Service for Opioid Use Disorder. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/tools/TLA3791-1.html.
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This research was jointly funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the National Institute on Drug Abuse and carried out within the Access and Delivery Program in RAND Health Care.

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