READ – Oregon inventory of services for cooccurring substance use and mental health disorders – for 2022, made available December 2023

In Oregon and nationally, a substantial proportion of clients in treatment for substance use disorders also have a mental health disorder. According to the 2022 National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey (N-SUMHSS), 59% of substance use (SU) treatment clients in the United States (US) have a co-occurring mental health disorder (COD), compared to 69% of SU treatment clients in Oregon. Among mental health (MH) clients in the US, 27% have a diagnosed SU disorder, compared to 37% of MH treatment clients in Oregon.

A detailed inventory of services offered by both SU and MH treatment programs improves understanding of the state’s capacity to provide (COD) treatment. This report describes the current availability of programs that provide both SU and MH treatment. Data sources include self-reported service information from Oregon programs that responded to the 2022 N-SUMHSS and the 2022 OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Substance Use Disorder Services Survey (SUDSS). Topics include: 1) overview of MH and SU treatment services, 2) detoxification, 3) medications, 4) smoking, 5) gambling, 6) emergency mental health services, 7) physical health screening, ancillary services and recovery support, 8) harm reduction, and 9) health equity.

Among programs reporting that they treat COD:

• 51% of SU COD programs offered treatment for gambling disorder.
• SU COD programs offered a wide range of ancillary services and recovery support, but only 59% reported offering naloxone and overdose education.
• 39% of SU COD programs administered/prescribed medications for alcohol use disorder (67% of residential and 36% of outpatient,).
• 35% of SU COD programs prescribed buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (42% of residential and 36% of outpatient).
• Programming for specific populations including LGBTQ and youth clients was rarely offered. Just over one third of COD programs offer services in Spanish, and half offered services in sign language.
• Among residential SU COD programs, 58% accepted Medicaid, and 25% accepted Medicare. Among residential MH programs that treat COD, 97% accepted Medicaid, and 55% accepted Medicare.

 

Oregon should do more to fix fractured behavioral health system, report finds
Lund Report, May 2024
The state’s failure to provide the sort of treatment considered the most effective ends up increasing costs elsewhere in the system, according to researchers

At least tens of thousands of Oregonians have been diagnosed with both mental illness and a substance use disorder. However, a new study has found the state’s treatment providers are too often geared to treat one type of situation or the other— and not both at the same time.

In Oregon, people are significantly more likely than the national average to be diagnosed with both mental illness and a substance-use disorder. But providers in the state often don’t offer the sort of integrated treatment shown to be the most effective, according to the study. And substance use treatment providers that do treat the different disorders together often require costly commercial insurance coverage that people in need don’t have.