Thanks in part to new funding from the national opioid settlement agreement, the UW Health Compass Program for people with substance use disorders recently expanded hours of operation.
The Compass Program, located at the UW Health clinic at 1102 S. Park St. in Madison, opened in January 2024 and has steadily grown with the help of grant funding from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
More recently, Dane County opioid settlement funding has enabled the clinic to increase patient access, according to Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, medical director of the Compass Program and an addiction medicine physician with UW Health.
“Our goal is to build a program that responds to the needs of our community and continues to grow and adapt as those needs change,” Salisbury-Afshar said in a press release. “We want to provide a flexible, low-barrier model that meets people where they are and makes it possible for them to receive care when they are ready.
“Opioid settlement funding has been essential to expanding that work, and additional public and private support helps us continue to respond to what our patients and community need.”
In 2021, Wisconsin joined several other states and municipalities in a lawsuit against major pharmaceutical companies and others that produced opioid pain medications and contributed to the opioid epidemic of the early 2000s.
Defendants, which also included pharmaceutical distributors and pharmacy chains, settled many of the cases and the money was distributed to states and municipalities to fight opioid addiction.
As part of the settlement, Wisconsin will receive more than $874 million between 2022 and 2038.
