Cost-Effective Care

Finding treatment options for opioid addiction comes down to a couple of key questions

- Kathleen O'Brien

How can you determine the level of care you or a loved one need — and how much it will cost?

The first question probably shouldn't be answered by the patient or the patient's relatives, experts say.

Choose too little care — one group meeting a week instead of three, or outpatient instead of inpatient — and the tricky business of detox and rehab could be doomed to fail.

Choose too much care — an extensive round-the-clock inpatient treatment versus what's called an “intensive outpatient” program — and the patient's health insurer could balk at paying for care it deems unnecessary.

Luckily, choosing the right care is a medical issue for which there are well-established criteria. Designed by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, it asks about focusing on everything from underlying medical conditions and family history to what support the patient will have in recovery.