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Council committee hears researcher: track treatment completion alongside licensing for recovery services
Summary
A Baltimore City Council committee heard research showing referral source, psychiatric co‑morbidity and living arrangements predict early exit from outpatient treatment, and asked city and state agencies to add treatment completion and retention metrics to licensing and oversight of recovery homes and clinics.
Councilwoman Felicia Porter convened a Public Health and Environment Committee hearing to press city and state agencies on oversight of recovery homes and outpatient substance use clinics in Baltimore City.
Dr. Trevor Clark, a PhD candidate at Morgan State University, presented findings from a national longitudinal analysis of 10,020 Treatment Episode Data Set discharges for African‑American adolescents. Clark said referral source, psychiatric co‑morbidity, living arrangements at admission and length of time enrolled “contributed meaningfully” to whether young people completed outpatient treatment and that those drivers were consistent across regions and subgroups. “If they're being referred from the criminal justice system, or if they are not stably housed, those referral pathways and living arrangements are major indicators on why they're not completing treatment,” Clark said.
Clark recommended that local oversight incorporate treatment completion and retention metrics alongside traditional licensing and compliance reviews so regulators can judge programs by outcomes, not just facility counts. “What good is a treatment program if it's not serving the citizens that are being admitted into those programs? The efficacy of those programs is just as important as licensing metrics,” he said.
Dan Rabbit, policy director at Behavioral Health System Baltimore (BHSB), described pending state regulation revisions to COMAR 10.63 that would, for the first time in draft form, create clearer standards and a recovery‑residence subsection requiring certification and annual inspection. Rabbit also noted a Medicaid enrollment moratorium affecting some intensive outpatient (IOP) and partial hospitalization program (PHP) enrollments that runs through June 30 and said the moratorium has been extended previously while the state considers new quality and oversight measures.
Rabbit said the city’s local behavioral health authority is preparing to receive more audit and performance data from the Medicaid administrative services organization (ASO), which the hearing discussed as having recently changed hands from Optum to a successor referred to in the meeting as “Carolon.” He said the ASO will share monthly updates on audits and performance improvement plans so BHSB can follow up with providers.
Council members pressed for the new oversight tools to be applied in ways that reduce racial and neighborhood concentration of lower‑quality services; Porter said outcome data should inform placement decisions and funding so the city avoids “pouring state funds into something that does not work.”
The committee made several requests of agencies, including (1) contact information for the state certification lead, (2) a plan from DHCD on adapting zoning and occupancy procedures within 30–45 days of COMAR promulgation, and (3) datasets or listings to cross‑reference recovery residences, supportive housing and reasonable‑accommodation property designations.
The hearing closed with BHSB and the council agreeing to pursue improved data sharing, expanded outcome tracking and close coordination among city agencies and the state as regulation and ASO reporting proceed.
