TY  - JOUR
TI  - Adolescent Residential Addiction Treatment in the US: Uneven Access, Waitlists, and High Costs
AU  - King, C
AU  - Beetham, T
AU  - Smith, N
AU  - Englander, H
AU  - Button, D
AU  - Brown, P.C.M
AU  - Hadland, S.E
AU  - Bagley, S.M
AU  - Wright, O.R
AU  - PT Korthuis
AU  - Cook, R
JO  - Health Affairs
PY  - 2024
VL  - 43
IS  - 1
SP  - 64
EP  - 71
DO  - 10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00777
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00777
AN  - 38190597
AB  - Drug overdose deaths among adolescents are increasing in the United States. Residential treatment facilities are one treatment option for adolescents with substance use disorders, yet little is known about their accessibility or cost. Using the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's treatment locator and search engine advertising data, we identified 160 residential addiction treatment facilities that treated adolescents with opioid use disorder as of December 2022. We called facilities while role-playing as the aunt or uncle of a sixteen-year-old child with a recent nonfatal overdose, to inquire about policies and costs. Eighty-seven facilities (54.4 percent) had a bed immediately available. Among sites with a waitlist, the mean wait time for a bed was 28.4 days. Of facilities providing cost information, the mean cost of treatment per day was $878. Daily costs among for-profit facilities were triple those of nonprofit facilities. Half of facilities required up-front payment by self-pay patients. The mean up-front cost was $28,731. We were unable to identify any facilities for adolescents in ten states or Washington, D.C. Access to adolescent residential addiction treatment centers in the United States is limited and costly.
KW  - adolescent addiction treatment
KW  - residential treatment
KW  - waitlists
KW  - treatment cost
KW  - audit study
KW  - for-profit care
KW  - health equity
KW  - behavioral health
ER  -