Understanding Treatment Data
What SAMHSA tracks, how facilities report their services, and how to read the data when searching for care.
YMYL Disclaimer
This content is for informational purposes only. If you or someone you know needs help, call SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 — free, confidential, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
What SAMHSA Is and Why It Matters
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is the federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responsible for leading public health efforts around behavioral health. Its mission is to reduce the impact of substance use and mental illness on American communities.
SAMHSA's most widely used public resource is the Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator — a searchable database of more than 16,000 substance use and mental health treatment facilities across all 50 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and other U.S. territories. PlainRecovery is built on this dataset, organized to make it easier to search and compare facilities.
How Facilities Report to the Locator
SAMHSA collects facility information through two annual surveys:
- N-SSATS (National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services): Covers substance use treatment programs. Data collected includes type of care, client capacity, special populations served, and services offered.
- N-MHSS (National Mental Health Services Survey): Covers mental health treatment facilities, including psychiatric hospitals, community mental health centers, residential treatment centers, and multi-setting programs.
Both surveys are voluntary. Facilities that choose to participate agree to keep their information updated. SAMHSA also directly contacts known providers to encourage participation, which is why coverage is relatively comprehensive despite the voluntary nature.
Key Data Fields Explained
When you view a facility on PlainRecovery, several data fields help you evaluate whether it matches your needs:
- Type of care: Whether the facility offers outpatient, residential, inpatient, or detox services. Many facilities offer multiple types. See Types of Treatment Facilities for a detailed breakdown.
- Focus area: Whether the facility specializes in substance use disorders, mental health conditions, or both (co-occurring/dual diagnosis).
- Special populations: Programs specifically designed for veterans, adolescents, pregnant women, LGBTQ+ individuals, or people with criminal justice involvement.
- Payment accepted: Whether the facility accepts Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, self-pay, sliding-scale fees, or provides free care. This is self-reported and may not reflect current insurance contracts — verify with the facility directly.
- Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT): Whether the facility offers buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone, or other medications to treat opioid or alcohol use disorder.
- Telehealth: Whether the facility offers remote services via video or phone, which expanded significantly after 2020.
What the Data Does Not Include
The SAMHSA dataset is authoritative but not exhaustive. Several important things are not captured:
- Current bed availability: The data reflects capacity and services offered, not real-time availability. A facility may be full when you call.
- Quality ratings: SAMHSA does not rate facilities by outcomes, staff-to-patient ratios, or recovery success. The listing says what a facility offers, not how well it delivers care.
- Cost and pricing: Insurance acceptance is self-reported at the survey level. Actual out-of-pocket costs depend on your specific insurance plan and coverage tier.
- Private practices: Individual therapists and small private practices often do not participate in the federal survey and may not appear in the database.
How PlainRecovery Uses This Data
PlainRecovery organizes the full SAMHSA dataset so you can search by location, filter by service type, and browse by state. Every facility page links directly to contact information so you can call and verify current availability.
We do not add, modify, or rate facility information beyond what SAMHSA reports. Our role is to make the federal data easier to navigate — not to editorialize about which facilities are better. Once you identify candidates, direct contact with each facility is essential.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the SAMHSA Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator?
The SAMHSA Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator is a confidential, free, searchable database of mental health and substance use treatment facilities maintained by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It covers more than 16,000 facilities across all 50 states and U.S. territories. Facilities voluntarily submit their information and update it annually.
How do facilities get listed in the SAMHSA database?
Facilities apply to be listed by completing the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) for substance use programs or the National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS) for mental health programs. Participation is voluntary, though most licensed and certified treatment providers choose to be listed to connect with patients who need care.
What information does SAMHSA collect about each facility?
SAMHSA collects facility name, address, and contact information; types of care offered (outpatient, residential, inpatient, detox); substances and conditions treated; special programs (veterans, adolescents, pregnant women); payment options accepted (Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, sliding scale, free); languages spoken; and whether telehealth services are available.
How current is the data on PlainRecovery?
PlainRecovery uses the most recent annual SAMHSA dataset. SAMHSA updates its locator continuously as facilities submit changes, and publishes full dataset snapshots annually. Individual facility information may change between updates — always confirm current services, hours, and availability by contacting the facility directly before visiting.
Does a SAMHSA listing mean the facility is accredited or recommended?
No. A SAMHSA listing means a facility self-reported its information to the federal database — it is not an endorsement, accreditation, or quality rating. Accreditation is separately granted by bodies like CARF International or The Joint Commission. Always verify a facility's license with your state behavioral health agency before enrolling.
Are all substance use and mental health programs in the US listed?
No. The SAMHSA locator covers facilities that chose to participate in federal surveys. Some private practices, peer support programs, faith-based groups, and newer facilities may not be listed. It is the most comprehensive publicly available national database, but should be treated as a starting point rather than a complete directory.
Sources
- SAMHSA — Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator (findtreatment.gov)
- SAMHSA — National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS)
- SAMHSA — National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS)
Related Guides
This content is for informational purposes only. If you or someone you know needs help, call SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
Understanding the Data
The information presented throughout this guide is informed by publicly available public records published by federal and state government agencies. Our database aggregates and standardizes these records to make them more accessible and easier to interpret for general audiences. When we reference specific statistics or trends, they are drawn directly from these authoritative sources unless explicitly noted otherwise.
It is important to understand the limitations of any large-scale data dataset. Records may contain errors from the original data collection process, some fields may be incomplete for older entries, and classification systems may have changed over time. Our analysis accounts for these factors by clearly labeling data vintage, flagging records with missing critical fields, and noting when temporal comparisons span methodology changes in the source data.
For readers who want to conduct their own research, we recommend going directly to the source whenever possible. federal and state government agencies provides detailed documentation on collection methodology, sampling frames, and known data quality issues. Our goal is not to replace primary sources but to make them more approachable and to highlight patterns that may not be immediately obvious when browsing raw records.
How We Analyze Data Records
Our analytical approach involves several steps designed to surface meaningful insights from large datasets. First, we clean and standardize the raw data, handling variations in naming conventions, date formats, and categorical labels. Then we compute summary statistics, distributions, and comparative benchmarks across relevant dimensions such as geography, time period, and category type.
Key metrics we examine include statistical records, geographic distributions, temporal trends. These indicators provide a multi-dimensional view of each entity in our database, allowing users to understand not just individual records but how they compare to peers, regional averages, and national benchmarks. We believe this contextual approach is far more valuable than presenting raw numbers in isolation.
