Financing a System of Care for Adolescents with Substance Use Disorders: Opportunities and Challenges

Publication Date: September 2002

Publisher: Institute for Health Care Research and Policy, Georgetown University; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Author(s): D.A. Cavanaugh

Research Area: Health

Type: Report

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to identify issues in the financing of treatment for adolescents with substance use disorders. These findings were used to inform the discussion at the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Summit on Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment, September 26-27, 2002. This paper discusses the existing need for adolescent substance abuse treatment, examines how the current adolescent substance treatment system is funded, and discusses issues in private and public insurance and public non-insurance based funding.

Currently there is very little information specific to the financing of adolescent substance abuse treatment. Data from large national studies have few subanalyses focused on the adolescent population. Thus this paper relied on information that, for the most part, represents the combination of adolescent and adult data. Information specific to adolescents has been broken out where possible.