About Change Counseling

If you are looking at About Change Counseling in Elgin, IL, the basics worth knowing up front: The facility's programming is outpatient (IOP), not residential. This page walks through the questions that tend to matter most to families weighing a specific program.

Care levels at About Change Counseling

The care-level question matters because what a facility offers is what it can realistically treat well. About Change Counseling is an outpatient-focused program (IOP) — patients live at home or in sober living and attend treatment sessions. This level of care is clinically appropriate for mild-to-moderate substance use disorder, or for patients stepping down from residential. Before admission, an independent clinical assessment (from a primary-care doctor, licensed substance-use counselor, or addiction-medicine physician) can confirm whether About Change Counseling's offerings match the clinical need.

Insurance and payment

About Change Counseling operates primarily on commercial insurance. The implication for patients: higher typical cost-share, potentially more intensive programming, and the full burden of MHPAEA parity-rule dynamics — including appeal rights when the plan denies. The single most useful pre-admission move on insurance is requesting the facility send you — in writing, by email — the specific benefits verification for your specific plan product. That document is the answer to most post-admission billing disputes.

Specialty programming

The facility's documented specialty programming includes: Criminal justice (other than DUI/DWI)/Forensic clients. The specialty question rewards specific follow-up: what clinicians provide the specialty content, what their credentials are, what percentage of weekly programming is specialty-specific vs. general programming.

Before you call

Before admission to About Change Counseling, three questions consistently produce the most useful information: (1) which ASAM level of care are you treating me at, and what is the clinical rationale; (2) can you send me a written Verification of Benefits for my specific insurance plan; (3) what is your policy on medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder — specifically, do you continue patients on buprenorphine or methadone during residential programming. If the clinical situation involves opioid use disorder, confirm explicitly whether About Change Counseling offers medication-assisted treatment — buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone. Programs that do not are operating outside the current standard of care.