Addiction is a disease that affects your behavior and your brain. Eventually, it becomes exceedingly difficult to resist consumption when one is severely addicted. Anyone who is struggling with addiction requires the right healing environment and reliable recovery services.
There are several ways that rehabilitation centers not only provide adequate support for effective recovery but also deliver savings within the context of health and social care. Axiom Care is one such rehabilitation center that has helped identify drug abuse and addiction problems in individuals and is committed to providing them with the best possible care.
Axiom Care’s Owner, Vern Johnson believes in ensuring empathy, diversity, innovation, accountability, and integrity. As a coherent leader, Vern aims towards empowering people by inspiring a change within themselves and transforming their lives with immersive betterments, ensuring a healthier future.
With his extensive experience in the niche, Vern is engaged in the service provision of health care in hospice, home care, assisted living, and behavioral health. He is also playing an active role in providing the best rehab treatments with an assurance of reliability for the patients of Axiom Care.
Let us dive into Axiom Care’s story and how Vern has served the rehabilitation industry.
An Inspiration Journey
About one and a half decades ago, a very good friend of Vern needed addiction treatment, and they had no idea what to do or whom to call. The more he researched the industry, the more it became apparent that there were considerable gaps in the service provision in the community and they were not the only ones facing this problem.
Although Vern’s friend eventually made it into a treatment center, he tragically died of an overdose a year later. It got him wondering, how can we do this better for the community members suffering from addiction?
And that was the time when Vern thought of venturing into the rehabilitation industry and the thought of building up the foundation of Axiom Care.
Providing the Best Possible Care
Axiom Care of Arizona, founded in 2012, is a locally owned substance abuse treatment and sober living housing provider with locations in Maricopa and Pinal Counties. Primarily serving low-income and justice-involved individuals, Axiom offers four levels of care which include Detoxification, Residential Treatment, Sober Living, and Outpatient Counseling. Axiom Care is licensed with all seven AHCCCS Medicaid payors, is contracted with the Arizona Department of Corrections for their Residential Community Behavior Modification program, and is Joint Commission accredited.
Axiom’s recovery housing is certified by the Arizona Recovery Housing Association and the National Association of Recovery Residences.
Community driven Leadership
Vern Johnson started his career as a social worker and has devoted over 25 years of his life to health care; he consulted for seven years to develop and implement a new business concept for 17 hospice and home care startups.
He moved on to partner in several projects regionally, including two large facilities in Mesa, Arizona, as well as several hospice programs around the country. Vern served as CEO of Building Blocks Counseling (now Axiom Care) and continues to serve on several committees and board positions for nonprofit organizations such as the National Hospice Organization, Arizona Health Care Association, 1n10, and Arizona Recovery Housing Association.
Today, Vern is involved in brokering projects in development, especially in behavioral health, nursing facilities, and assisted living.
An Uphill Climb
One of the biggest gaps that Vern saw in the Arizona treatment industry was a lack of treatment available to folks on AHCCCS (Medicaid), and these are often the people with the greatest need for treatment.
So, from the beginning, he knew they wanted their doors to be open to lower-income and justice-involved folks on AHCCCS. However, the process of getting contracts with AHCCCS to provide services to their members is incredibly onerous and time-consuming.
Further narrating the difficulties, Vern says, “Today, one of the biggest challenges in our industry is finding appropriate locations for new facilities. Nearly every attempt to open a new facility is met with steep resistance from neighbors who do not want a treatment center in ‘their backyard.” Although most people are happy to see facilities open to serve their neighbors, friends, and family suffering from addiction, a vocal minority in opposition can often derail a project.
Additional Challenges in the Industry
The dirty secret in the addiction treatment industry is that the most common type of treatment, a 30-day residential stay, has only a ten per cent chance of creating long-term sobriety. Study after study shows that to be successful; most people need longer stays in treatment, as many as 6-12 months. The trouble is, insurance companies never pay for treatment that long, so no facilities offer treatment that long either.
Vern further points out, “At Axiom Care, we’re not content with the status quo, so we’re working with AHCCCS payors, local leaders, and researchers to develop a new type of program that will give people a better shot at long-term sobriety.” He believes by offering multiple levels of care on a single integrated campus, including peer-led recovery housing, the team will seamlessly transition patients from one level of care to the next, providing a continuous treatment experience that lasts up to twelve months and gives patients a solid foundation for real, lasting recovery.
Inculcation of Technological Knowhow
Vern completely agrees on reaping the benefits of technology for enabling convenience in the rehabilitation industry. He states, “Our electronic medical record allows for real-time collaboration between our addiction treatment professionals at multiple sites. It also allows for thorough data analysis and business intelligence, which help us more quickly identify problem areas and improve patient outcomes.”
A Note to Remember
When giving his valuable advice, Vern states that in the healthcare industry, you always have two primary groups of customers: the patients who are receiving the services and the insurance companies who are paying for the services. It is important to carefully determine each of these groups’ unique needs in your respective areas, then find your niche.
He highlights it with an example and says, “We knew that the Medicaid insurance payors in Arizona would be very positive about a new detox facility in Pinal County since none already existed – however, Pinal County did not have enough potential patients. To support an entire detox by itself.”
To overcome this, the organization began offering free transportation to any prospective patient from anywhere in the Phoenix Metro area to its Pinal County facility. This quickly became one of its major differentiators.
By opening the facility in Pinal County, the company is meeting the needs of the insurance payors, and by providing no-cost transportation, it is meeting the needs of patients.
Noteworthy Awards
Axiom Care has been the recipient of the Residential Community Behavior Modification contract with the Arizona Department of Corrections since 2015, which has been renewed multiple times since it was first awarded. In that time, Axiom has served thousands of recently released offenders, helping to reduce recidivism in the State of Arizona.
Axiom Care is accredited by the Joint Commission, the gold standard for healthcare organizations dedicated to achieving superior patient outcomes.
Testimonies that Matter
Below are a couple of clients’ experiences when they reached out to Axiom Care.
I checked myself in on Friday for my alcoholism, and it was an awesome experience; and I would recommend it to anyone tired of being tired. I wish I could name all the great staff, but I cannot remember all their names one guy’s name is DJ. He was incredible, and his empathy and kindness were unmatched.
-Kevin M
If you are serious about your sobriety and recovery, this is the place to start your journey!
-Ant D
