The state will change the way it reimburses medical providers for drug rehabilitation under Medicaid, the insurance program for low-income people, to encourage more counseling services for addicts and emphasize its importance as part of treatment.The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced Tuesday that it will reimburse for outpatient counseling separately from methadone treatment beginning next March, opening the door for more patients to get counseling. It also will allow the state to better track whether treatment centers are providing counseling.
The current reimbursement model for methadone treatment lumps drug disbursement and counseling into one category. A clinic is reimbursed a single weekly fee for a patient no matter the number of counseling sessions they attended, methadone treatments they received or other services they used.Research has shown the best treatment for addicts is a combination of counseling and the use of methadone or buprenorphine, medications used to …
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Medicaid drug reimbursement to put more focus on counseling – Baltimore Sun