Adult Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
The Adult Intensive Outpatient Program serves individuals with severe and persistent behavioral health disorders whose needs are better met with more frequent contact and outreach.
This service is a home- and community-based mental health, high-intensity treatment service that provides a multi-disciplinary treatment team approach to assessed individuals in the greatest need of these services. Team members work together to provide intensive coordinated and integrated treatment as described in an individual service plan. Services are designed to rehabilitate individuals who are experiencing severe mental illness symptoms in the community; thereby, a main goal is to avoid more restrictive levels of service such as psychiatric inpatient hospitalization or residential placement and facilitate step down to more traditional outpatient services when ready.
Goals of IOP include client reinforcement of safety, promotion of stability and independence of the individual in the community, and restoration and stabilization to a higher level of functioning. The treatment team may be accessed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, often in the client’s home or community, to support individualized treatment needs, ensuring that during a crisis, services are delivered by someone who is directly involved in ongoing care. IOP services are ongoing services and not Emergency Services. The IOP clinicians are the primary program staff responsible for the support of clients in their program.
The staff to client ratio in this program is no more than 15 clients to 1 clinician. The treatment team has the capacity to provide multiple contacts a week with clients experiencing severe symptoms, trying a new medication, experiencing a health problem or serious life event, trying to go back to school or starting a new job, making changes in living situation or employment, or having significant ongoing problems of daily living. These multiple contacts may be multiple times a day, seven days per week and depend on client need and a mutually agreed upon plan between clients and program staff. Many, if not all, staff share responsibility for addressing the needs of all clients requiring frequent contact.
Services available in this program include a full range of interventions including individual counseling, case management, psychiatric evaluation, medication management, group therapy, and crisis interventions.
This service is available in Snohomish, Skagit, Island, and Whatcom counties.
To access this service, call 844-822-7609 and request an outpatient assessment; the outpatient assessor can refer you to this service if indicated. If you are already enrolled in services at Compass Health, talk to your clinician about this service.
