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Continuum Of Care Essay

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Drug and Alcohol Treatment in America has been based on the Medical Model of Treatment. According to Wikipedia, the medical model of addiction is rooted in the philosophy that addiction is a disease and has biological, neurological, genetic, and environmental sources of origin. Treatment includes potential detox with a 28 day or more stay at a residential treatment facility. The continuum of care can include an additional 28 days at the partial hospitalization level, followed by another 6 weeks of Intensive Outpatient.

With the introduction of Obamacare the insurance companies have begun to pay less and less for the revolving door of treatment services. With the average length of stay in a residential treatment center around 28 days and the bills ranging from $12,000 to $70,000, insurance companies have cut the amount that they are willing to pay for addiction services. Some insurance companies will pay for the least restrictive level of care first, even if a clinical professional requests a higher level of care.

This leaves the client and their family in a sticky situation. They can pay cash out of pocket for the treatment, wait for a mental health diagnosis so that the insurance companies will pay, or look for an alternative form of treatment that might be more effective an affordable. Sometimes the insurance company actually will refuse to pay any more benefits for the client for the year since he or she has been in and out of treatment centers so many times that

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