All of the rehabs with a three, four or five star rating on Conquer Addiction have invested in outcomes research which systematically follows up with their patients for at least one year after they leave treatment. The biggest difference between the research results on Conquer Addiction’s website and the ridiculous claims of 80+% rehab success rates you might hear elsewhere is that if a patient doesn’t respond to the research, Conquer Addiction assumes they are using. Only patients who respond to the research and report meeting their drug and alcohol usage goals for at least the last 30 days at six or twelve months post-treatment are counted as successes.
Conquer Addiction requires rehabs to submit updated research results at least once a year. Additionally, in order to be accepted by the independent panel of Conquer Addiction judges, the outcomes research needs to follow these stringent rules:
- Be conducted by an independent research entity that keeps each patient’s results confidential
- Follow a written script
- Contacts patients close to their 6- or 12-month anniversary
- Either include all eligible patients who spend more than minimum amount of time (usually 7 days) in treatment or, for centers discharging more than 275 patients per year, randomly select at least 275 patients per year
- Follow exacting rules to ensure there is no cherry-picking of the patients selected for the research.
Since it takes at least two full years to generate 12-month outcomes research results for a year’s worth of patients, programs may submit 6-month results if they've been doing outcomes research for less than two years.
Download Conquer Addiction's complete outcomes research rules.