The opioid epidemic has ravaged American life.

It has claimed more than 750,000 lives as a result of a drug overdose since 1999. In 2018 alone, more than 2 million people had an opioid use disorder and more than 800,000 people used heroin.

To alleviate these deaths of despair and get people the treatment they need, many individuals are looking to short-term residential facilities for substance use treatment programs, commonly referred to as rehabilitation, or rehab.

But, as a paper in the 2021 February issue of Health Affairs notes, recruitment practices and cost of care at these facilities can raise concerns. The authors found most programs required up-front payments, with for-profit programs charging more than twice as much as nonprofits.

Listen to Alan Weil interview Tamara Beetham, a PhD student in health policy and management at the Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the paper.

Auditing the admission practices for opioid use disorder treatment