Cost-effectiveness measurement and budget control of a voucher system for drug and alcohol abstinence

The article briefly describes the largest voucher program in the substance abuse treatment (SAT) in the United States, Access to Recovery (ATR). It analyzes the work flow process of SAT voucher management system, and explores scientific approaches in two major areas needed by most of voucher programs: budget management and cost-effectiveness measurement of outcome. For the cost-effectiveness outcome measurement, we articulate the relations of Government Performance Report Act, services types, fee for each service. For the budget management, we build a simulation model. Based on a large number of simulating running of practical data, three efficient control rules are proposed and tested. We demonstrated the viability and feasibility of our analysis using WITS-VMS, which operates six ATR State Grantees of USA. The satisfactory results have been achieved.