University of Iowa Healthcare

About University of Iowa Healthcare

University of Iowa Health Care provides addiction treatment in Iowa City through the UI Addiction and Recovery Collaborative (UI ARC), the health system’s Division of Addiction Medicine, which combines clinical care with research, physician training, and statewide outreach. Their approach is evidence-based and grounded in harm reduction, pairing medication for addiction treatment (MAT) with therapy and recovery support for opioid, alcohol, stimulant, and tobacco use disorders. Care ranges from a dual diagnosis partial hospitalization program to intensive and extended outpatient therapy and several outpatient MAT clinics. They accept Iowa Medicaid, Medicare, and most major insurance plans, and case managers help uninsured patients explore payment options.

Medications include buprenorphine-naloxone (Suboxone), naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram, varenicline, and take-home naloxone, offered through a weekday MAT clinic, a Wednesday walk-in clinic, a mobile clinic serving rural and underserved communities, and the TeleMAT-IA phone line, which can connect callers with a prescriber within the same week. The partial hospitalization program runs full weekdays for people with co-occurring mental health conditions, blending individual, group, and activities therapy with psychiatric care and medication management, while the IOP meets three afternoons or evenings a week so participants can keep working and living at home. Healthcare and other professionals can join a dedicated track with drug testing and help meeting licensing board requirements, including a virtual nurses recovery group. They also conduct court-ordered OWI and voluntary substance use evaluations, and grant-funded programs add peer recovery coaching, transportation assistance, and HIV and hepatitis C screening and treatment.