Most States Do Little to Help Addiction Treatment Programs Implement Health Care Reform

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) dramatically expanded health insurance coverage for addiction treatment, and provides unprecedented opportunities for service growth and delivery model reform. Yet most addiction treatment programs lack the staffing and technological capabilities to respond successfully to ACA-driven system change. In light of these challenges, we conducted a national survey to examine how Single State Agencies (SSAs), the state governmental organizations charged with overseeing addiction treatment programs, are assisting programs to respond to new requirements under ACA implementation. We find that most SSAs provide little assistance to addiction treatment programs. Although the majority reported that they assisted addiction treatment programs in developing collaborations with other health service programs, fewer than half reported providing help in modernizing systems to support insurance participation, and only one in three provided assistance with enrollment outreach services. In the absence of technical assistance, it is unlikely that addiction treatment programs will be able to realize the ACA’s promise to improve the accessibility and quality of addiction treatment.