Chestnut Health Systems

The Unit 5 school board Wednesday voted to expand a collaborative agreement with Chestnut Health Systems to bring a full-time mental health counselor to Normal West high school.

Bloomington-Normal is home to one of the largest and most diverse addiction archives in the U.S.

For years, health care providers have treated alcohol and drug addiction like an acute condition: when someone checks into a treatment center, they’re given psychiatric care under close supervision to help them get clean. After treatment, they’re referred to a recovery community like a 12-step program, to help them stay on the right path, and released back into the community.

As the national opioid epidemic continues, representatives from the medical, treatment, and insurance fields met in Bloomington at a roundtable discussion to talk about more collaboration to care for addicts and prevent addiction.

K2. Spice. Black Mamba. Research chemicals. Potpourri. New psychoactive substances.

The enrollment period for obtaining health insurance through the Affordable Care Act on the Illinois exchanges begins Nov. 1, but signing up might prove more daunting this year than in the past.

Now that Republican efforts to scuttle Obamacare have failed, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said Wednesday he is hopeful a bipartisan reform measure can emerge.

The Illinois Democrat said he trusts GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to help come up with health care reform.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday rejected a plan to declare the opioid epidemic a national emergency, though local health professionals say the federal government can still take specific steps to help addicts get help here in McLean County.