Effectiveness of value-based purchasing for substance use treatment engagement and retention

Many people drop out of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment within the first few sessions, which suggests the need for innovative strategies to address this. We examined the effectiveness of incentive-based contracting for Maine's publicly funded outpatient (OP) and intensive outpatient (IOP) SUD treatment, to determine its potential for improving treatment engagement and retention.

Maine's incentive-based contract with federally block grant-funded OP and IOP treatment agencies created a natural experiment, in which we could compare treatment engagement and retention with a group of state-licensed treatment agencies that were not part of the incentive-based contract. We used administrative data for OP (N = 18,375) and IOP (N = 5986) SUD treatment admissions from FY2005-FY2011 to capture trends prior to and after the FY2008 contract implementation date. We performed multivariable difference-in-difference logistic regression models following propensity score matching of clients.

Two-thirds (66%) of OP admissions engaged in treatment, defined as 4+ treatment sessions, and 85% of IOP admissions satisfied the similar criteria of 4+ treatment days. About 40-45% of OP admissions reached the threshold for retention, defined as 90 days in treatment. IOP treatment completion was attained by 50-58% of admissions. For OP, the incentive and nonincentive groups had no significant differences in percentages with treatment engagement (AOR = 1.28, DID = 5.9%, p = .19), and 90-day retention was significant in the opposite direction of what we hypothesized (AOR = 0.80, DID = -4.6%, p = .0003). For IOP, the incentive group had a significant, but still small, increase in percentage with treatment engagement (AOR = 1.52, DID = 5.5%, p = .003), but the corresponding increase in treatment completion was not similarly significant (AOR = 1.12, DID = 2.7%, p = .53). In all models, individual-level variables were strong predictors of outcomes.

We found little to no impact of the incentive-based contract on the treatment engagement, retention, and completion measures, adding to the body of evidence that shows few or null results for value-based purchasing in SUD treatment programs. The limited success of such efforts is likely to reflect the bandwidth that providers and programs have to focus on new endeavors, the importance of the incentive funding to their bottom line, and forces beyond their immediate control.