Health law could stress Pa. addiction services
PITTSBURGH – Thousands of state residents with drug and alcohol problems will become eligible for insurance coverage next year under the new health care overhaul, and experts say that will present opportunities and challenges.
About 101,000 Pennsylvania residents receive treatment, and about 96,000 more are projected to be eligible next year, according to an Associated Press analysis of government data. There also are estimates that as many as 873,000 people in the state need treatment for substance abuse.
But the 5,381 beds at treatment facilities are full, and that means newly eligible patients could have trouble getting treatment.
“There are a lot of really great opportunities” with the expanded coverage, said Julie Donohue, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. But Donohue noted that diagnosis and referral is also an important part of successful treatment and that all those areas will have to be coordinated to deal with new patients.
Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Program spokeswoman Christine Cronkright wrote in an email that treatment programs have been responsive to changes in the number of people requiring assistance and they expect that to be the case in the future.