Insurance expansions and adolescent use of substance use disorder treatment.

<bold>Objective: </bold>To provide evidence on the effects of expansions to private and public insurance programs on adolescent specialty substance use disorder (SUD) treatment use.<bold>Data Source/study Setting: </bold>The Treatment Episodes Data Set (TEDS), 1996 to 2017.<bold>Study Design: </bold>A quasi-experimental difference-in-differences design using observational data.<bold>Data Collection: </bold>The TEDS provides administrative data on admissions to specialty SUD treatment.<bold>Principal Findings: </bold>Expansions of laws that compel private insurers to cover SUD treatment services at parity with general health care increase adolescent admissions by 26% (P < .05). These increases are driven by nonintensive outpatient admissions, the most common treatment episodes, which rise by 30% (P < .05) postparity law. In contrast, increases in income eligibility for public insurance targeting those 6-18 years old are not statistically associated with SUD treatment.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Private insurance expansions allow more adolescents to receive SUD treatment, while public insurance income eligibility expansions do not appear to influence adolescent SUD treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]