Issue Brief #7: Implementing Health Care Reform—Benefit Design Provides Opportunity to Reduce Addiction Treatment Gap

The March 2010 passage of health care reform means millions more Americans will have insurance coverage for addiction treatment as part of their basic benefit package. This represents a major step forward in making addiction treatment part of a comprehensive approach to integrated health care.

Federal and state regulators are now tasked with translating and implementing that vision by defining what will be included in the addiction treatment benefit for both public and private insurance. When health care reform is fully implemented, almost all individual and small group plans – both within and outside of the future health insurance exchanges – will be required to cover addiction treatment services for enrollees at “parity” with other covered medical and surgical benefits. In addition, basic addiction treatment benefit and parity requirements will also extend to the millions of newly eligible adult Medicaid beneficiaries.

For the promise of this historic opportunity to be realized, a meaningful addiction treatment benefit will include a full continuum of effective, integrated treatment practices.

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