Even among commercially insured individuals, opioid use disorder is undertreated in the United States: nearly half receive no treatment within six months of a new diagnosis. Using a difference-in-differences specification exploiting the extension of insurance parity requirements for substance use disorder treatment to small-group enrollees in 2014, we find that parity increases utilization of residential treatment but decreases utilization of agonist medications, the standard of care. We find direct interventions to increase access to medication may be more promising: increases in the county-level share of physicians able to pre-scribe agonists are associated with substitution toward treatment that includes medication. ? 2023 American Society of Health Economists. Published by The University of Chicago Press for the American Society of Health Economists.
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