The Cost of Treating Substance Abuse Patients With and Without Comorbid Psychiatric Disorders

Abstract

Having a comorbid psychiatric diagnosis appears to consistently increase the cost and utilization of services among patients with a primary diagnosis of a substance use disorder. These results are consistent with previous findings for dually diagnosed patients with a primary psychiatric diagnosis. The increased cost may simply reflect the greater severity of illness among dually diagnosed patients, but it may also indicate fragmented and inefficient service delivery.