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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Thomas Stegbauer, MA, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1 Choke Cherry Road, 5-1099, Rockville, MD 20850, 240.276.2965, tom.stegbauer@samhsa.hhs.gov

[Part of session: “Co-occurring substance use and mental disorders: Epidemiology, policy, practice, and costs.” Charlene Le Fauve, charlene.lefauve@samhsa.hhs.gov.]

Persons with co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders, a group that uses primarily public services, are particularly difficult to track in terms of treatment and cost. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) conducted the Integrated Data Base (IDB) Project to link data from mental health, substance abuse, and Medicaid agencies to understand more fully the costs associated with this population . IDB was implemented in three States – Delaware, Oklahoma, and Washington. The study used imputation techniques for missing expenditures, validated total expenditure estimates against external sources, and devised a special counting algorithm to avoid double counting of expenditures for the same client services recorded by multiple agencies. This presentation reports findings on expenditures for clients with co-occurring mental disorders and substance use disorders compared to clients with single disorders. There was a substantial prevalence of co-occurring disorders among persons in treatment, costs of treating persons with co-occurring disorders exceeded costs for persons with a single disorder, and the expense per person treated for both disorders is larger than the sum of the per-person expenses for the two single diagnoses. The study also examined characteristics of clients with co-occurring disorders and their levels of utilization and expenditures by service type (inpatient, residential, outpatient, and psychotropic drugs). Policy implications will be explored.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be able to

• Describe the impact of co-occurring disorders on service cost.
• Describe characteristics of clients with co-occurring disorders and their levels of utilization and expenditures by service type.
• Discuss policy implications of cost issues associated with co-occurring disorders.

Keywords: Substance Abuse Treatment, Mental Health Services

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation