New Medicaid initiative aims to increase access to substance use disorder treatment

CMS recently announced a new demonstration initiative to support comprehensive, evidence-based service delivery approaches to substance use disorder treatment.

For the past year, CMS has worked with states through the Medicaid Innovation Accelerator Program to provide states with support to pursue innovations that reduce costs and improve health outcomes for beneficiaries with substance use disorder.

Victoria Wachino

In addition to these efforts, the new initiative will provide increased flexibility for states conducting reforms to provide coverage for short-term inpatient and residential substance use disorder services, which are generally not covered by Medicaid, according to Victoria Wachino, MPP, director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services.

Under the new initiative, states looking to significantly improve delivery of care to beneficiaries with substance use disorder will be able to develop care coordination models to better connect patients with providers, provide more integrated health care services to beneficiaries with substance use disorders and integrate treatment into community-based care.

CMS expects the initiative will enable states to better identify individuals with substance use disorders, increase the number of substance use treatment providers and use of evidence-based practice standards and measure progress with quality metrics.

For more information:

To learn more about the demonstration initiative, visit http://www.medicaid.gov/federal-policy-guidance.