Most States cannot, for reasons of confidentiality, identify clients with a unique ID assigned at the State level. Consequently TEDS is unable to follow individual clients through a sequence of treatment episodes. Some admission records may in fact represent transfers, and therefore the number of admissions reported probably overestimates the number of treatment episodes. The number and client mix of TEDS admissions does not represent the total national demand for substance abuse treatment, nor the prevalence of substance abuse in the general population. The primary, secondary, and tertiary substances of abuse reported to TEDS are those substances which led to the treatment episode, and not necessarily a complete enumeration of all drugs used at the time of admission.
States rely on individual facilities to report in a timely manner.
However, the additional submissions are unlikely to have a significant effect on the percentage distributions that are the basis of these tables. States continually review the quality of their data processing. When systematic errors are identified, States may revise or replace historical TEDS data files. TEDS continues to accept data revisions for admissions occurring in the previous five years. While this process represents an improvement in the data, the numbers of admissions reported here may differ slightly from those in earlier or subsequent reports and tables.