Medicare in Illinois

Medicare is one of the options that you can use to offset the cost of your addiction treatment and rehabilitation services in Illinois. This publicly funded program also covers many other health care services in the country.

About Medicare

A publicly funded health care insurance program, Medicare can help you afford the cost of care if you are above the age of 65 years or living with a disability. It can also prove useful if you are struggling with end-stage kidney disease and you require dialysis or a transplant as a result.

Originally, the Medicare program was divided into two distinct parts - Part An and Part B. Part An offered coverage for hospitalization and inpatient addiction treatment services while Part B covered any other require health care options - such as outpatient addiction treatment.

Today, however, there are two additional parts to this program - parts C and D. Part C is also known as Medicare Advantage and works with private insurance companies who provide their services to people who are under the program. Part D, on the other hand, offers coverage for prescription medications.

Although Medicare mostly targets specific segments of the population, it is still important to remember that the overall focus of this program is not just on substance abuse, behavioral, and mental health treatment and rehabilitation services. however, there are parts of the program that you can use to pay for the addiction and mental health treatment services that you may need.

Treatment Levels under Medicare

If you are worried about your substance abuse patterns, you should consider seeking treatment for the problem. In case you are on Medicare, you may be able to use parts of this program to take care of the costs of your treatment.

In many cases, this will largely depend on your treatment needs and where they are on the accepted continuum of care as defined by ASAM - the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

a) Level 0.5

Also known as the Early Intervention Stage, this level will cover prevention and education programs if you have a high risk of abusing drugs and alcohol and developing an addiction. If you are on Medicare, you can use it to pay for treatment sessions with doctors and other professionals. You may also use this coverage before you start taking prescription medications to reduce your risk of developing addiction as a result.

b) Level 1

This level is known as outpatient treatment. It mostly represents a maximum of 9 hours of treatment each week involving counseling and other recovery services. You can use Medicare to pay for outpatient care under this level.

c) Level 2

This level can be useful in paying for some of the partial hospitalization programs or intensive outpatient programs that you attend to help you overcome your substance abuse and addiction.

d) Level 3

You can use level 3 of Medicare to offset the cost of inpatient addiction treatment. this will require that you stay at the care facility for anywhere between 1 and 3 months - or even longer in some cases.

e) Level 4

Level 3 of the Medicare program in Illinois can be useful in paying for the medically managed intensive inpatient care services that you may need to overcome your substance abuse problems and any other co-occurring disorders.