Medicaid and treatment for people with substance abuse problems

People with substance abuse problems often depend on Medicaid to pay for treatment. Health Care Reform, as specified in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, will increase the importance of Medicaid as a payment system for chemical dependency care. Now entering its second 50 years, Medicaid is a unique partnership of federal and state agencies financing health care services for low income people. This book is an invaluable resource for patients, family members, clinicians, administrators, and policy-makers concerned about ways to pay for addiction treatment. Written by national experts, the book summarizes the provisions of Medicaid of most relevance to substance abuse treatment, reviews the pertinent history of this complex and ever changing program, and describes key findings from numerous "natural experiments" such as the implementation of Medicaid managed behavioral health care as well as cutbacks in Medicaid coverage. The book is a convenient resource for students in health care professions learning about Medicaid as well as for administrators interested in optimizing provision of care for people with substance abuse problems. Legislators, too, will find that the book documents numerous lessons learned over the last two decades of rapid change in Medicaid.