OUTPATIENT vs. INPATIENT – Substance Abuse Treatment
“Most people, when asked about addiction rehab, will envision the individual going to a secret place where they “get cured.”
THE TRUTH is most addiction treatment occurs in outpatient settings, in the patient’s home community. These settings vary from evening programs to day treatment and provide all the clinical components of inpatient care, while still allowing the patient to return home each night to their family. Multiple studies have proven that outpatient addiction treatment is at least as effective as inpatient. 1,2,3,4,5
While some patients require hospitalization, that hospitalization may include just a few days of stabilization. Each individual presents with different conditions and treatment needs. The assessment process, therefore, is of utmost importance. Hill Alcohol and Drug Treatment facility provides comprehensive patient evaluations for $75 (unless covered by insurance). Choosing the right treatment setting, or combination of settings, is paramount to a successful outcome. There is no one type that fits all! Studies have attempted to determine which treatment setting has greater success. The results show that the setting is less of a factor for success than are patient attitudes, family involvement, length of treatment and the patient’s accessibility to ongoing treatment services.
1 Cummings, Nicholas A.
2 Miller and Hester – (1986)
3 McLellan, Thomas – (2004)
4 Gregaire – (2000)
5 UCLA – Burdon, Dane (2008)
“Outpatient treatment has tremendous benefits.”
Outpatient treatment is typically a quarter of the cost of inpatient treatment.
Successful outcomes are enhanced by the relationships that the patients make with local individuals in recovery. These “recovery connections” serve to help displace their “drug connections,” as the patient begins to gain a sense of hope that life can be exciting and fulfilling.
Outpatient treatment, in real time with real stressors, offers a seamless connection, with the same people and systems, throughout the various levels of care involved in the treatment process.
For some people, especially those discontinuing use of drugs like Xanax, a hospital setting can be important, but, eventually these patients will stabilize and need to return home to continue the lengthy detox process. In these cases, good inpatient programs will work together with the patient’s local outpatient program, to assist the patient’s transition through an often very long withdrawal and post-acute withdrawal period.
With pain pills and Heroin, a new medication makes outpatient treatment viable, and tremendously effective. It has been specifically developed to make opiate treatment available on an outpatient basis. With this new medication, successful outcomes have gone from 10% to 80%.
HILL RECOVERY | 41877 N. Enterprise Cir Ste 100 Temecula, CA 92590 | Phone 951.719.3685 | WWW.HILLRECOVERY.COM