Board discusses GuideLink Center billing, sobering services and opioid-settlement billing; staff to pursue top-10 outreach to counties
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Summary
Supervisors reviewed GuideLink Center monthly invoicing, ongoing county support for detox and sobering services, plans to bill opioid-settlement funds for triage portions, and agreements with 10 counties to pay for detox for unfunded clients; staff will compile top-10 out-of-county user data and consider outreach to those counties.
Johnson County supervisors spent a lengthy portion of their Feb. 4 work session on GuideLink Center operations, invoicing for med/detox/sobering services, intercounty cost-sharing and how opioid-settlement funds will be used in monthly billing.
Erin and GuideLink representatives reviewed an October 2025 invoice and described continuing the practice of monthly billing through June 2026 while invoicing shifts to county accounting. Board members discussed that the county has historically funded detox for people without private insurance or Medicaid and that GuideLink’s sobering service currently lacks a dedicated state funding source.
"We have 10 counties that will pay for our detox services for those who are unfunded," one staff member said, identifying Calhoun, Hamilton, Linn, Story, Washington, Wright, Adair, Humboldt, Jefferson and Louisa as contracted partners. Supervisors debated outreach to the top users and agreed staff should collect top‑10 county usage data; Erin said the minimum for the top-10 list included Clinton County at the low end and Lynn County with 23 out‑of‑county patients.
Staff also described a change to the intake form to capture opioid screening information beginning January 2026 so the county can more defensibly allocate a portion of GuideLink billing to opioid-settlement funds (the triage portion). "We're gonna start that effective in January as we agreed to for our plan," Erin said. Supervisors cautioned that such revenue streams are not guaranteed year-to-year and urged broader legislative advocacy to sustain services.
The board directed staff to gather county usage data, place the outreach idea on a future work session and continue the monthly invoicing and reporting cadence.