New Tennessee Program Incorporates Addiction Treatment Modalities into Whole-Person Care

A Nashville treatment center owner and a longtime practitioner based in rural Tennessee are teaming up to form a new treatment and recovery resource that will aim to deliver therapeutic and medication-assisted addiction treatment models within the scope of a whole-person care practice.

Ryan Chapman, owner of Integrative Life Center in Nashville, and Daniel Sumrok, MD, a practitioner with more than 20 years of experience treating addiction and substance use disorder, are forming a partnership to launch Integrative Health Centers.

Chapman entered the addiction treatment space in December with the acquisition of Integrative Life Center in Nashville, which he describes as “a traditional residential and outpatient, trauma-focused provider” of addiction, mental health and eating disorder treatment services. Chapman says through discussions with industry colleagues and peers, he began to envision a future that incorporated medication-assisted treatment, all within the scope of whole-person care. Chapman was tipped off to the work being done by Sumrok two hours away.

“I was talking with people about this idea, and the founder of ILC, Lee McCormick, was one of several people who told me, ‘I think what you would be looking to scale and grow already exists with Dr. Sumrok in McKenzie, Tennessee,’ ” Chapman says. “That’s when the initial connection was made and conversations started. We spoke the same language. We saw the problem the same way.”

IHC will offer trauma-informed therapy, with a focus on adverse childhood experiences, as part of its whole-person care model. That was a key for Sumrok, who also teaches at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis and has extensively studied the role of traumatic events in addiction.

“When Ryan talks about general medical care and addictions care and the single point of service provision of care, that makes my heart flutter because I firmly believe one of the problems with medicine is it’s difficult for people to access and difficult to access in a whole-person way,” Sumrok says. “As important to me is that that whole-person way include this trauma-informed philosophy.”

Chapman will serve as IHC’s chief executive officer, while Sumrok serves as chief medical officer. Step one of the partnership will be expanding the scope and volume of services offered at Sumrok’s McKenzie practice, Chapman says. A temporary Nashville clinic is slated to open within the next month while the site of a permanent Nashville flagship location in the city’s midtown area undergoes renovations. As more providers are brought on board, IHC plans to open additional locations in 2019 and 2020, with the Nashville practice serving as a model for urban facilities and McKenzie to serve as a rural model, Chapman says.