title: Research on the cost of providing family therapy: a summary and progress report.
abstract: This article provides a summary of effectiveness research on the costs of including family therapy in mental health services. Data was available from four different sources: (1) a large western Health Maintenance Organization with 180,000 subscribers in the local Utah region; (2) the Medicaid system of the entire State of Kansas in the United States; (3) a US health insurance company with several million subscribers; and (4) a Family Therapy training clinic. Results suggest that family therapy reduces the number of health care visits, especially for high utilizers. These results were also replicated in a graduate student training clinic. Also, studies of two different health care systems (and a cost projection study) suggest that including family therapy as a treatment option does not significantly increase health care costs.
authors.affiliation: Brigham Young University, 257 TLRB, Provo, UT 84602, USA. RussCrane@byu.edu
authors.forename: D Russell
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Crane
mesh_terms: D005196:Family Therapy / Q000191:economics*; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000191:economics; D007615:Kansas; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016730:Program Development / Q000191:economics*