MiDUD (Part 1)

Let's get to it:

Every year, millions of Americans seek help stopping or cutting back on drug and alcohol use.
What's the first place most people turn?
Dr. Google!

But this yields a predictable fire hose of information (and ads, sigh). While it looks useful, under the surface this list of addiction “treatment” website has a rotten core: scams, body brokers, privacy risks, outdated info, broken links, on and on. Finding accurate, up-to-date addiction treatment options has been a longstanding, daunting process that holds back our response. It does not have to be this way.

FindTreatment.gov: Cutting Through the Chaos of Finding Addiction Treatment Online

To help address some of these issues with searching for addiction treatment online, the US federal government launched FindTreatment.gov in 2019. This website leverages the federal government's vast knowledge about addiction treatment by providing a centralized resource for people seeking care.

It has gotten better since launch by adding information to help people understand what constitutes quality addiction treatment, how to pay for it, and an enhanced search tool. This enhanced search includes criteria like the facility smoking policy or whether they treat pregnant and parenting folks. Little details that make a big difference when deciding where to go for treatment.

This one-stop-shop approach taken by the federal government makes sense for patients and public health. Now there is one link to share and promote. One website to focus our attention on improving. And while FindTreatment.gov was a step forward from the hellscape that was Googling this topic before, it has not been perfect. It has faced criticism for incomplete data, lack of real-time updates, insufficient user testing, and privacy issues. 🤓 Still, for the last few years it was the first link on Google search when people used addiction related keywords. (Side note: Recently, this changed to 9-8-8, even though that doesn’t have the same resources for people seeking care…but that’s for a future newsletter…)

Despite the existence of FindTreatment.gov, local treatment locators have popped up in the meantime. This isn't a completely bad idea. Local efforts that have proper resources and expertise might better capture real time availability and supplement missing info from FindTreatment.gov that is helpful when navigating addiction treatment.

However, despite their critical role, these non-federal treatment locator websites often end up with the same (or more!) problems as the federal resource, leaving vulnerable people still navigating a maze of broken links, outdated information, and poor design.

That brings us to Michigan!

MiSUD Locator

With much fanfare and press, the MiSUD locator was launched in November 2024 (‼️) by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to help people find treatment and recovery providers in Michigan (the MI in MiSUD).

Cool!