Breaking the Cycle: Addiction and Opioid Recovery | Michael Vasquez

Since 1986 Mr. Vasquez has been the founder of industry changing companies in the United States. A software developer by training, after spending 6 years with AT&T Corporate, Vasquez founded ISAC, a computer consulting firm in 1986. Vasquez wrote the software that automated Ladies Home Journal Magazine in 1987. Until then, the magazine was done on typewriters. Mr. Vasquez merged ISAC into PACE Health Management which developed the first electronic medical record system to go public on NASDAQ that used expert systems and artificial intelligence neural networks to develop clinical pathways that supported clinicians taking patients from admission to discharge. The company was later sold to 3M Healthcare. 

Mr. Vasquez founded CareMedic Systems – the first real time processing system for hospital Medicare Part A claims. In 2000, the Mayo Clinic Foundation purchased 5% of the company and by 2004, CareMedic software was serving 1,500+ hospitals in America. The company was sold in 2005 to United Healthcare and continues today as a product of Optum. Mr. Vasquez and his wife founded St Gregory Retreat Centers for people suffering from substance abuse. St Gregory developed a proprietary cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program and served 10,000+ addicted patients with 25% of those patients addicted to heroin or prescription painkillers. Unique to St Gregory, Mr. Vasquez worked with research physicians to understand, develop, and deliver an intravenous body chemistry solution to reduce or eliminate cravings for opioids. Delivered to over 2,000 patients by 14,000 treatments with almost no adverse effects, the result was 84% of patients were still alive, sober and working after 48 months. To complement this solution, Mr. Vasquez also developed and built a complex mass-spectrometer laboratory with unique panels that could identify metabolites of opioids as recovering patients required undeniable oversite. The company was  sold to a venture capital roll-up, Summit BHC in September 2018.

After interviewing hundreds of opiate and heroin addicted patients, Vasquez saw a constant theme where patients had become dependent due to prescriptions provided for acute or chronic pain, primarily orthopedic in nature. In an effort to reduce opioid prescribing, Vasquez founded Harbor View Medical, which provided orthopedic stem cell procedures developed by Regenexx© as a non-invasive alternative for people who were facing orthopedic surgery and potential long-term opioid prescriptions. Mr. Vasquez was successful in getting local self-insured health plans to include coverage for these procedures. Harbor View Medical was merged into Regenexx© in 2017.
In January 2018, Opioid Clinical Management, Inc was founded by Mr. Vasquez in response to the dramatic opioid epidemic and the national need for a solution. OPCM has developed proprietary software algorithms (patent pending) and integrated provider management to allow large self-insured employers to identify physicians who are over-prescribing opioids and employees that are struggling from resulting opioid abuse. There are 1,700 employer health plans that use OPCM software. In 2000 Mr Vasquez was named Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” and inducted into the Entrepreneur of the Year “Hall of Fame'' He received his Executive Health Management Certificate, Harvard School of Public Health and attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and Drake University.

Topics covered in this episode:
Opioid Addiction Treatment Strategies
Early Intervention 
Opioid Addiction Development
Definitions of Addiction
Withdrawal Symptoms 
Treatment Approaches
Personal Motivation and Journey
Role of Faith in Recovery

Referenced in the episode:
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