Service-level costing of drug abuse treatment

This payer presents a methodology far estimating costs of delivering specific substance abuse treatment services. Data collected from 13 programs indicate that the mean cost of residential treatment is $2,773 per patient per month, and outpatient treatment costs average $636 per patient per month. Data are presented on the cost per patient per month for individual treatment and nontreatment services, average number of services, cost PET unit of service, and intensity of services. III addition to their application to insurance benefit cost estimation, these data illustrate the costing of best-practice adolescent treatment consistent with a Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) Treatment Improvement Protocol. In the emerging policy environment, derailed cost estimates like these will aid the design of cost-effective treat ment programs, and serve the development of the substance abuse benefit in a health care reform insurance package. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc.