A daily check-in for every addiction recovery client — and an early warning for everyone who supports them.

HandHeld Monitoring is a daily check-in and early-warning system for addiction treatment centers. Each day clients answer a short check-in by phone, web or smartphone and record a voice journal, and random drug tests are scheduled automatically. When something looks wrong (a missed check-in, high cravings, distress in the voice journal, a failed test) the right people hear about it the same day. It was built with ABC Recovery Center in Palm Desert, California, and has run there every day since 2018.

It is for addiction treatment centers and everyone who supports their clients: counselors and caseworkers, physicians and nursing staff, family and loved ones, sober-living managers, courts and probation officers, and program leadership. Each of them sees only what their role needs.

Once a day, by phoning in or with the mobile or web app, the client answers five questions: mood, stress, craving, life satisfaction, and whether they took their medication. Then they record a short voice journal in their own words. It works on any phone, including a basic or government-issued one.

Test days are scheduled at random, and the client is told that morning, so there is no safe “using window” to plan around. A nurse tests the specimen at the center’s nursing station, or testing is done fully remotely through LabCorp. The result goes straight into the client’s file for the physician to review.

When a client misses a check-in, reports a jump in cravings, sounds distressed in the voice journal, or misses or fails a test, their caseworker gets a text the same day. The client’s chosen support contact can be told as well. Staff can act before the weekend instead of finding out at the next session.

Yes, with the client’s consent. The client chooses a support contact, such as a sister, a partner or a parent, and decides what that person is told. If a check-in is missed or something looks wrong, they hear early, instead of after a crisis. Nothing is shared without the client’s consent.

Yes. HandHeld Monitoring keeps a dated record of every check-in and every test: completed, missed, passed or failed. Urine tests go to LabCorp, a laboratory certified by SAMHSA under the HHS National Laboratory Certification Program, with a documented chain of custody and review by our Medical Review Officer. With the client’s consent, the compliance record can be shared with the court or the probation officer.

Yes. In California it is 100% reimbursed by Medi-Cal. It becomes part of the treatment services the center already bills to Medi-Cal. ABC Recovery Center has included it in its Medi-Cal budget with Riverside County since 2018, so the net cost to the center is $0. Billing codes and claim steps differ from county to county, and we help map HandHeld Monitoring to your existing county contract.

In California, Medi-Cal pays for substance use disorder treatment through Drug Medi-Cal, in most counties as the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System (DMC-ODS). To bill it, a program needs a state license or certification for its level of care, Drug Medi-Cal certification from the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) for each site, and a provider contract with its county’s DMC-ODS plan. Most centers that already treat Medi-Cal clients have all three.

Days, not months. We configure your accounts and testing schedules and train your staff, with no setup fee and no long-term contract. Then a caseworker registers each client with their substances, prescriptions and support contacts, and the check-ins, random tests and voice journals run on their own.

At ABC Recovery Center, 623 clients were monitored from September 2018 to January 2026. 70% completed treatment, against 48% nationally, and clients stayed 85 days on average, against 79 nationally.