The recommendation

The recommendations usually don’t get delivered right there and then. Usually it’s a one to two week wait, depending on the complexity of the situation; a simple alcoholic without a lot of emotional baggage might hear back within the week.

It can stretch to a few weeks, because a lot of the places that do these evaluations are very busy.

Most people go home and have another meeting with their physician health program, or lawyer assistance program, or whatever the equivalent is in your profession, to discuss the recommendations and decide what to do next.

No. The two aren’t connected. Where you got your evaluation done can be where you go for treatment, or, especially if you didn’t get a positive impression of the facility during your evaluation, you can choose somewhere else.

A lot of people do just go to treatment where they did the evaluation, because it saves the next place having to do another one. And I’ve heard of people who go to their evaluation and just don’t leave: “Okay, if you’re going to recommend treatment, let’s just get it started.”

Choosing somewhere else has two drawbacks. First, even though the new facility has your written evaluation in hand, you’ll likely be repeating some of the interviews and questions you already sat through. Second, even if you didn’t get a great feeling about the place that did your evaluation, at least you got some feeling. Picking a treatment facility you’ve never set foot in means jumping in blind.

It’s an option, and some people elect to take it. Here’s what I can tell you about how it goes.

After eight years in these programs and meeting literally hundreds of other participants, I know of only one person who went for a second opinion evaluation and got something significantly different from the first. The second opinion evaluation is going to want all the records from your first one, so changing the answers you gave the first time to try for a different recommendation typically doesn’t work, and it usually winds up looking bad for you.

The program is the next page, and it covers what the recommendation is usually recommending.

Whether it’s 28 days, 60, or 90, and what kind of setting. Where they want you to go. When it starts, and what happens with work in the meantime. What it costs, and what your insurance will cover.

Those genuinely vary; they’re the whole reason the recommendation exists. The wait, and the meeting where you decide, don’t vary much at all.