Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective</jats:title><jats:p>To provide evidence on the effects of expansions to private and public insurance programs on adolescent specialty substance use disorder (SUD) treatment use.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Data Source/Study Setting</jats:title><jats:p>The Treatment Episodes Data Set (TEDS), 1996 to 2017.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Study Design</jats:title><jats:p>A quasi‐experimental difference‐in‐differences design using observational data.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Data Collection</jats:title><jats:p>The TEDS provides administrative data on admissions to specialty SUD treatment.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Principal Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Expansions of laws that compel private insurers to cover SUD treatment services at parity with general health care increase adolescent admissions by 26% (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .05). These increases are driven by nonintensive outpatient admissions, the most common treatment episodes, which rise by 30% (<jats:italic>P</jats:italic> < .05) postparity law. In contrast, increases in income eligibility for public insurance targeting those 6‐18 years old are not statistically associated with SUD treatment.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Private insurance expansions allow more adolescents to receive SUD treatment, while public insurance income eligibility expansions do not appear to influence adolescent SUD treatment.</jats:p></jats:sec>