The Obstacles of Insurance: Getting Addiction Treatment Covered

April 26, 2021

Below is an excerpt from 2KUTV. You can watch and/or read the whole story here.

"2News' Jim Spiewak asked Dr. Adam Gordon, a professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of Utah, why insurance only covers a certain amount of days when the research shows people need a lot more help than that.

'It's a big problem because the mental health insurance coverage in the United States has generally been time limited,' Dr. Gordon answered.

Coverage may be for only a 90-day treatment program or 10 to 12 sessions of counseling.

But Dr. Gordon says insurance companies are beginning to realize that's not enough to help addiction disorders.

'If they can get people into outpatient care, healthcare providers, counselors — they can avoid the every expensive hospitalization and emergency visits,' Gordon said. 'We're seeing more and more insurance carriers broaden their coverage for patients with addiction.'

Gordon says it's up to healthcare professionals to show it's cheaper to be preventative than reactionary.

In short, we need to normalize the disease 'and the disease can be taken care of in normal medical settings, then the insurance coverage, the medications will be readily available to anybody,' Gordon said."