Amber Hollingsworth (YouTube video) explains different inpatient and residential addiction treatment options, their costs, pros/cons, and suitability. She contrasts state-run facilities, nonprofit/religious programs, private paid residential programs, partial-hospitalization/partial with lodging as an insurance-friendly option, and sober-living houses; emphasizes patient readiness/willingness, limits of free programs, insurance restrictions (medical necessity), and provides concrete cost examples.
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How much should you pay for treatment? This is a big question. First thing I'll tell you is treatment is expensive and I know many families, they think, oh well, there's all these places and they'll do it for free. And that's true. There are some places that you can get some help for free if you need to. But I need to explain to you like how that works. There are state ran facilities that help people and they are good places and they have licensed professionals. But I need you to understand that the people that are in there are mostly people that really don't want to be in there. And most addiction treatment is done in a group therapy process. And so what you get out of treatment is really connected to who's in that group. And so if you're putting your loved one in a treatment facility where people really, really, really don' want to be there and they're in big trouble and there's lots of other bad things going on, I just need you to understand that affects the treatment that your loved one gets. There are also sort of like non profit, religious ran places a lot of times for addiction treatment. Those places usually have a pretty good long waiting list. And so your loved one would likely have to get on a waiting list and be very willing to go in. So it works in a really certain specific kind of perfect sort of situation. Usually means like, I have seriously hit bottom, I have nothing else. I am living on the street and I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Those people go into those kind of treatment centers and they do pretty well sometimes. But those treatment centers are usually very strict. They're trying to help as many people as they can and they don't have time to help someone who's not ready as they call it, or not willing or hasn't hit bottom or has an attitude problem or any of if they're going to bring that kind of difficulty, that place is going to put them out because they're not charging you. And they've got a list of people who are ready and want some help, so you're out. So if this is your husband or your kid and you know they're not really that willing and that nice about it, they're going to give them a hard time. Then they're probably not going to last in one of those like free places because I'm telling you, they don't put up that like they're helping you for free, like forget it, you got to pay somebody put up with that. So like that's not always your solution. A lot of times they're just not equipped to handle any kind of like co occurring pretty significant mental health problems. So if you've also got like some pretty severe anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive, ptsd, they're probably not equipped at handling that part of the situation. They're just kind of a place that can give you structure and routine and accountability and get your butt sober, which is good. But they might not be equipped to handle mental health. In fact a lot of them don't allow you to be on any kind of medicines when you come in. Like most places you can't be on addictive med in addiction treatment, but these places won't even let you come in like on like Zoloft or Prozac or something. They don't have the capability to manage those meds and to handle them. And so it might not be a good resource for you if you're on, if the person's on medications that they really, really need to be on. So there are some limits to free kinds of treatment. If you're looking at going to like a pretty good like 30, 60, 90 day program, you're looking at $30,000, you know, 30 days probably going to cost you 20 something thousand dollars and up from there all the way up to 90 days or so. So that is not inexpensive. If you have insurance, your insurance may have benefit for addiction treatment, but I'm just going to tell you the truth. Even if it has benefit, it's probably limited. And even with those limited benefits that it does have, that insurance company is going to fight you tooth and nail about paying for their services. So if you've got a loved one and they've been struggling with this problem and you want them to go away to 90 day treatment, but they haven't had done a lot of other treatments, the insurance company is going to say oh no, you need to try outpatient first. You need to try this because basically insurance policies are usually written for medical necessity. And so unless someone is seriously in like a life threatening medical situation, insurance companies don't want to pay for big expensive treatment. They say, well that can be done on the outpatient level, which not really always the case, but that's the way insurance works. So if you're looking to use your insurance, you need to find a facility that accepts insurance benefits, number one, because they don't all because insurances are pain to work with. And number two, you need to find out exactly what your benefit is because sometimes they'll say yes, you have coverage and you get your loved one there. And then they're there five days and they're acting better. And then they ask for a report from the facility and they say, you know, they're doing good, they're attending their meetings, they've stayed sober, and they say, okay, good, they're cured. And they send them back home after a week. And you'll be like, are you kidding me? Like, this has been years and years of trying to get them in treatment. They are not better after a week. Trust me, they're not. But the insurance companies can say, well, they're acting good, they're not showing any bad signs, so they're well enough to come home. And then there you are stuck again. So understand there are limits to your insurance. Most of the time your insurance will pay for outpatient counseling services, or intensive outpatient, or maybe even partial with lodging. So if you really must use your insurance, if you need residential treatment for your loved one, but you really can't afford it and you know your insurance is going to pay for it, look for a partial with lodging program, because a lot of times the insurance company will pay for the treatment part. Remember, partial lodging is like they're in treatment all day at the hospital, but they, they stay or they sleep or live usually in some sort of like recovery dorm or recovery housing situation of some sort. So a lot of times insurance will pay for the treatment part and then the family can pay for the housing part. And that's a way to really put together residential light treatment for a longer period of time that's economical or somewhat affordable. And lastly, there are these places that I think are sort of like middle places. They're not really like hospitals. They're not always ran by like licensed treatment professionals, but they're good structured recovery programs, usually run by other people in recovery. And they're not free, but they're usually sort of somewhere in the middle. Like there's one around here that we send people to that costs it's like $2000 to get in the door, and then 16 or 1800 bucks a month. But after the first month, the person can work and pay a good portion of that. So I know that seems like a lot of money, but that's actually pretty inexpensive way to get 30 days of addiction treatment expensive. Especially if you're looking at going away to treatment center. It's going to cost you $28,000. $2,000 is really pretty good deal if you think about it. Another one we use around here, and it's $5200 a month or something like that, which seems like a lot of money, but that includes their food, their transportation. So you're pretty much getting like residential treatment, but not paying residential treatment, hospital facility prices for it. So there are ways around how to know what you're looking for and know, like, what it's going to cost you, how willing the person has to be, what the rules are, can they be on meds, how much structure is there? There are these, like, recovery sober living houses out there that are pretty inexpensive. A lot of times they're like 100 bucks a week. And all I'm going to say is you get what you pay for sometimes. I'm not saying that that can't work or doesn't work. I'm just saying that much money, those places are very unlikely to be able to afford a lot of supervision or staff or drug screening or. So you're risking it. You know, a lot of times you have some addicts living in there, not a lot of accountability. And maybe sometimes it's going good and sometimes it's not. You could have everybody in the house using and no one knows it. There are some realistic considerations here when it comes to picking the level of treatment and treatment facility. You got to take all these things into consideration.
