Drug and alcohol dependency services: prepaid group launches vanguard program

How can a medical community best approach a person who has developed alcohol or drug dependency? And to what extent can recovering drug dependent people truly help others? This article concerns what is happening at an alcohol- and drug-dependency center at one prepaid AGPA member group, where they are looking at these problems, particularly poignant ones, since the program is akin to the type of program in which the federal government has expressed increasing interest. In fact, on November 7, 1980, the Health Care Financing Administration announced the availability of grant funds for demonstration projects (Federal Register, pp. 74456-61) on the effectiveness of providing alcoholism services under Medicare and Medicaid programs "in free-standing residential and outpatient centers and halfway houses utilizing non-physician personnel."