STAT (5/3, Joseph) reports there are now 71, up from four, residential treatment programs for substance abuse for Medicaid beneficiaries in Virginia, “made possible in part by a new type of ‘waiver’ from federal rules that has dramatically expanded treatment options.” According to STAT, up to 200,000 of Virginia’s “1.1 million Medicaid beneficiaries have a substance use disorder, and fatal opioid overdoses doubled from 2010 to 2016.” The “growing opioid epidemic…stirred federal Medicaid officials to take action and widen access to care.”
Related Links:
— “How Virginia dramatically expanded treatment options for addiction (and skirted federal law),” ANDREW JOSEPH, STAT, May 3, 2017.