Principal Findings Probability of inpatient drug treatment is directly related to the type of drug diagnosis. Firm-specific factors also make a substantive difference. Controlling for patient risk factors, firm-specific probabilities of inpatient treatment vary by as much as 87 percent. Controlling of practices of firms and their insurance carriers, differing patient risk profiles cause probabilities of inpatient treatment to vary by as much as 69 percent among firms. Use of the outpatient setting increased over the three-year period.
Conclusions There are two plausible explanations for the findings.
First, people beginning treatment later in the three-year period had less severe conditions than earlier cases and therefore had less need of inpatient treatment. Second, drug abuse treatment experienced the same trend toward the increased use of outpatient care that characterized treatment for other illnesses in the 1980s and early 1990s. Official journal of the Academy for Health Services Research and Health Policy. Association for Health Services Research . All rights reserved.