The most repeated claim about insurance and addiction treatment is wrong. Federal parity law does not require a plan to cover it. What it requires is that where a plan does cover it, the limits are no more restrictive than those on medical care. The coverage mandate comes from a different law. Thirty days of inpatient treatment runs $5,000 to $30,000, and medical detox $250 to $800 a day.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| Medical detoxNational range | $250 to $800 per day |
| Inpatient rehabilitation, 30 daysNational range | $5,000 to $30,000 per 30 days |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
The figures here are national. Where a source publishes figures state by state, the state pages carry that local figure instead of this one. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act is routinely described as requiring insurers to cover addiction treatment. It does not. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services states it plainly: the Act does not require group health plans or issuers to cover mental health or substance use disorder benefits at all.
What it requires is comparability. Where a plan does offer those benefits, the financial requirements and treatment limitations placed on them must be no more restrictive than the predominant ones applied to substantially all medical and surgical benefits in the same classification. It reaches group plans with more than fifty employees, and individual coverage.
The actual coverage requirement comes from somewhere else. The Affordable Care Act makes mental health and substance use disorder services one of ten essential health benefit categories in non-grandfathered individual and small-group plans. So the useful question to a plan is not whether parity applies but whether the plan is one that must carry the benefit in the first place, and then what the limits are.
Detox or withdrawal management is medically supervised stabilization, and it is not treatment. Inpatient or residential care is 24-hour. Partial hospitalization is day treatment with the patient going home at night. Intensive outpatient is several hours across several days a week. Standard outpatient is the least intensive.
Placement between them is meant to be set by the ASAM Criteria, now in its fourth edition, released in 2023, rather than by what a facility happens to sell. A program that recommends its own most expensive level for every caller is not applying criteria.
A state license is what makes a facility lawful. Accreditation is a third-party review on top of it. The Joint Commission accredits more than 3,500 behavioral health organizations and states its accreditation is recognized by state regulatory agencies in all fifty states. CARF accredits specific programs rather than the organization as a whole, including withdrawal management, inpatient treatment and residential treatment, with a sobering center program added in 2026.
The practical use of that distinction is in the question. Ask what the facility is licensed for by the state, and separately ask which specific programs are accredited and by whom, because CARF accredits the program rather than the building.
Substance use disorder treatment records held by a federally assisted program are protected by 42 CFR Part 2, which is stricter than HIPAA. The distinction that matters most: even where a consent permits redisclosure for treatment, payment and operations under HIPAA, those records still may not be used in legal proceedings against the patient. The 2024 final rule implementing the CARES Act changes has been effective since April 2024, with compliance required from 16 February 2026.
Ask the plan two separate questions: is this benefit covered at all, and what limits apply to it. Parity answers only the second.
Ask what level of care is being recommended and what criteria produced that recommendation.
Ask what the state license covers and which programs are accredited, by name and by accreditor.
Ask what happens after detox, and get that in the same conversation. Detox is stabilization; the treatment is what follows, and it is separately priced.
Ask what is not included. Sober living afterwards runs fifteen hundred to two thousand a month and is rarely covered.
No. CMS states that the parity law does not require plans to cover mental health or substance use disorder benefits. It requires that where they are covered, the limits are no more restrictive than those on medical and surgical benefits.
The Affordable Care Act, which makes mental health and substance use disorder services one of ten essential health benefit categories in non-grandfathered individual and small-group plans.
About $250 to $800 a day. Outpatient runs $250 to $500 a day, inpatient $500 to $800, and hospital-based $5,000 to $10,000 and up. A national daily average of $525 is reported by one source.
About $5,000 to $30,000, with luxury facilities running to $80,000 a month and beyond. Partial hospitalization is $350 to $450 a day and intensive outpatient $3,000 to $10,000 for 30 days.
Detox, then inpatient or residential, then partial hospitalization, then intensive outpatient, then standard outpatient. Placement is meant to follow the ASAM Criteria, fourth edition, rather than what a facility happens to sell.
A voluntary third-party review, separate from the state license that makes a facility lawful. The Joint Commission accredits organizations; CARF accredits specific programs, so ask which programs are accredited rather than whether the building is.
More so than ordinary medical records. 42 CFR Part 2 protects substance use disorder records at federally assisted programs, and they may not be used in legal proceedings against the patient even where a consent permits redisclosure under HIPAA.
Usually sober living after discharge, at $1,500 to $2,000 a month, which is rarely covered by insurance. Ask what happens after detox before you agree to detox.