Brandeis and Harvard Collaborate To Improve Substance Abuse Treatment
In Managed Care

Nearly 10% of Americans, including 9% of teenagers, abuse alcohol or drugs, but only a fraction of those who are enrolled in managed care plans -- about one percent -- receive substance abuse treatment. A new collaboration between Brandeis and Harvard universities promises to make substance abuse treatment a reality for those in need.

Building on its pioneering leadership in managed care research, the Brandeis/Harvard Center on Managed Care and Drug Abuse Treatment has won $6.3 million to develop mechanisms to improve drug abuse treatment services for managed care patients. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will fund three research projects aimed at improving access to and quality of substance abuse treatment in managed care. The objective is to investigate how organizational management, financing and payment within managed care can be improved to benefit substance abusers seeking treatment.

"Both the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services and providers are eager to have systems in place that help them improve quality. The Center will be an important catalyst in designing mechanisms to drive quality improvement," said Massachusetts state substance abuse director Michael Botticelli.

The Brandeis/Harvard Center, a collaboration between Brandeis University’s Center for Behavioral Health in the Schneider Institute for Health Policy, and Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy, will involve 17 researchers. They will be supported by an external advisory board of providers, employers, managed care experts, communications specialists and other researchers.

"As a nationally leading substance abuse research center, we are thrilled and gratified to be selected to undertake such critically important research," said Constance Horgan, Principal Investigator and director of the Center for Behavioral Health at Brandeis University’s Heller School. "This grant will seed important change in the delivery of drug abuse treatment services for people who desperately need them," Horgan added.

"We’re focusing on how to improve the system to better serve this group of patients," explained Richard Frank, Co-principal Investigator and professor at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Health Care Policy.

Established in 1995, the Brandeis/Harvard Center pioneered managed care research, examining its growth and comparing it to more traditional health care systems, such as fee-for-service. Groundbreaking research at the Center has already led to the adoption of substance abuse performance measures by the National Committee on Quality Assurance (NCQA), which accredits health plans.

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