Treatment Program Cost Analysis

Michael French, an economist at the University of Miami, and his colleagues have developed a cost-assessment tool, DATCAP, for substance abuse treatment programs. Their tools help to identify the different types of costs associated with running a program and their relative contribution to treatment costs. Here is an excerpt from this longer description:

The Drug Abuse Treatment Cost Analysis Program (DATCAP) is a cost data collection instrument and interview guide designed to be used in a variety of medical treatment and social service settings. The instrument is intended to collect and organize detailed information on resources used in service delivery and their associated dollar cost. Resource categories include personnel, supplies and materials, contracted services, buildings and facilities, equipment, and miscellaneous items. The instrument also collects information on program revenues and client caseflows. The DATCAP instruments are available for download in four separate versions, each available in a choice of Acrobat PDF and Microsoft Excel formats. The PDF-format is intended to view or print the instrument; the Microsoft Excel (XLS) format is a spreadsheet intended for data entry and results analysis.

This is a paper reporting the cost estimates for 85 different treatment programs, including details on how the data were collected. Data on some adolescent programs are included. For additional information on the project or to have their project help analyze your program, follow this link.