Behavioral Health:  Developing a Better Understanding

ENSURING ACCESS TO TREATMENT SAVES

 

Treatment Works; People Recover!  Adequate funding for prevention and treatment of substance abuse and mental illness will save millions of dollars in long-term costs related to criminal justice, child welfare, and emergency medical expenses.  When access to treatment is limited, individuals with substance abuse issues and/or mental illness often end up costing greater amounts of public dollars by needing treatment in other systems such as jails or prisons, juvenile facilities, emergency rooms, homeless shelters, and foster care.  Spending money on the front end to prevent and treat substance abuse and mental illness will save Ohio millions of dollars in the long run.  More importantly, treatment allows people to save themselves, their families and their children.  Treatment increases productivity and quality of life for consumers and their families.  Ensuring access to treatment and eliminating the stigma attached to mental illness and substance abuse will allow every Ohioan in need, the opportunity to seek and receive treatment that could put them on the path to recovery.

 

Recovering People Work.  Appropriate treatment allows many consumers to enter into a state of recovery and well-being where they are able to obtain and sustain employment.  People with addiction disorders or mental illness who participate in programs which provide both treatment and employment services show increased earnings from 12-22%, which are in turn invested in Ohio’s economy.

 

Working People Pay Taxes.  As a result of treatment, those same individuals are able to sustain employment and contribute to society by paying taxes.  They reduce the strain on society as a whole when they contribute to the tax base that helps to fund the treatment services they and others receive.  For each employed Ohioan, the combined state and local annual tax gain is, on average $2,869 per person.

 

To Treat

Not To Treat

For every dollar spent on substance abuse treatment, there is an economic return of approximately $7; on mental health treatment it is approximately $4.  These savings take into account productivity at work and reduction in crime, child abuse, and homelessness.   The total average Medicaid costs for individuals with substance abuse problems who receive treatment is nearly 50% less than for addicted individuals who do not receive treatment.

Mental Illness: According to The President’s new Freedom Commission on Mental Health, the nationwide total annual indirect costs lost due to untreated and inappropriately treated mental illness is $79 billion.  Lost productivity accounts for $63 billion, premature mortality accounts for $12 billion, and crime and family care costs account for $4 billion.   Substance Abuse: According to the Office of national Drug Control Policy, the total economic cost of the consequences of drug abuse equals $180.9 billion.  Columbia University’s report Shoveling Up:  The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets, indicates that for every dollar states spent only four cents was used to fund prevention and treatment programs.  The remaining 96 cents went to covering the impact of substance abuse in the criminal justice system, schools, Medicaid, child welfare, juvenile justice, mental health, and highway safety.

 

It Saves Lives

• 7,314 healthy babies were born to women in publicly funded alcohol and other drug treatment programs between 1992 and 2002, saving Ohio more than $338 million on care for drug-exposed infants.
• Adults with serious mental illness die on average of 25 years earlier than other Americans.
• More than 90% of people who die by suicide have a history of mental illness.
• At least half of the individuals arrested for major crimes including homicide were under the influence of illicit drugs around the time of their arrest.

It Saves Families

• Approximately 60% of individuals who complete chemical dependency treatment and attend self-help groups are likely to remain alcohol and drug-free.
• Treatment for bipolar disorder has a recovery success rate of 80% treatment for major depression, panic disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder has a recovery success rate of 70%; and treatment for schizophrenia has a recovery success rate of 60%.
• In Ohio over the last two years, 30,943 children were removed from homes where substance abuse was a contributing factor and thanks to intervention that included treatment and Family Drug Courts, 23,517 children were reunited with caregivers equaling $235 million saved in out-of-home care.
• Nationally, nearly 13,000 families had to give up custody of their children to juvenile detention or to the foster care system in order for them to receive mental health care.

It Saves Children

• Seven out of ten cases of child abuse are exacerbated by a parent’s abuse of alcohol and/or other drugs.
• Approximately 50% of students age 14 and older with an untreated mental disorder drop out of school.
• Children of alcoholics/addicts are 2-4 times more likely to repeat the addiction in their own lives.

It Saves Jobs

• Employment rates among people with schizophrenia double with the use of appropriate medication.
• Of Ohioans receiving substance abuse treatment in 2006, approximately 1,162 obtained employment by the end of their treatment, equaling $19.3 million in earnings (at $8 per hour) and a combined state and local tax gain of $3.3 million.

 

• Overall, chemical dependency treatment saves taxpayers an estimated $9,177 per person treated.

 

• Drug treatment costs 15 times less than incarcerating a person for a drug-related crime.

 

• It costs $7,480 per year to treat someone with mental illness in the community while it costs $24,517 per year to keep someone in prison.

 

 

From the Ohio Association of County Behavioral health Authorities,

Behavioral Health:  Developing a Better Understanding

Vol. Three, Issue XI