IU Health Ball Memorial Expands Addiction Treatment Program Amid Rising Overdose Rates

IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie has expanded its addiction medicine program, adding roughly 100 new outpatient treatment slots and launching a peer recovery coach initiative that pairs newly enrolled patients with trained coaches who have their own history of substance use recovery.

The expansion responds to sustained demand for medication-assisted treatment at the East Central Indiana hospital, where waitlists for outpatient addiction treatment had grown in recent years even as the hospital added capacity, reflecting broader regional trends in opioid and stimulant use disorder treatment demand.

"Medication is a critical piece of treatment, but it's not the whole picture, and patients told us again and again that having someone who's actually been through this themselves made a real difference in whether they stayed in treatment," said the medical director of Ball Memorial's addiction medicine program. "The peer coach program came directly out of listening to what was actually helping people stay engaged."

The peer recovery coaches, all of whom have at least two years of sustained recovery themselves, will work alongside patients during the critical early months of treatment, when relapse risk and dropout from care are highest according to hospital data. Ball Memorial has hired six peer coaches so far, with plans to expand the team further depending on demand.

Delaware County has recorded persistently high overdose death rates in recent years, and county health officials have identified expanded access to outpatient addiction treatment as a priority strategy for reducing fatalities. IU Health Ball Memorial said the expanded program is now accepting new patients with a significantly shorter waitlist than before the expansion.