Issue Brief: Investigating the Availability of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Data in State APCDs

April 2025 – All-payer claims databases (APCDs) offer a rich resource for state agencies, analysts, and others to explore important details related to the cost, quality, and delivery of healthcare services. Many researchers, however, have been reluctant to use APCD data to study the prevalence and treatment of behavioral health conditions due to the perception that the relevant data is unavailable due to federal and state privacy restrictions.

As part of Onpoint’s ongoing data quality assessments, our team recently conducted an in-depth investigation into the availability of SUD-related data in our clients’ APCDs. This analysis, which also informed the preparatory work for our 2025 Multi-State Behavioral Health Initiative dashboards, also explored how the removal of SUD data – a key component of behavioral health – can impact similar data related to mental health conditions, which often co-occur with SUD.

This issue brief discusses how Onpoint evaluated the availability of SUD data in our clients’ APCDs, identified variation in health plans’ SUD redaction approaches, and worked with the available data to support robust and meaningful analysis for our clients. It also features recommendations for researchers seeking to perform their own analyses of behavioral health and SUD conditions using state APCDs. Read the full issue brief here…

Note: This issue brief is part of Onpoint’s 2025 Multi-State Behavioral Health Initiative, an exciting collaboration with five of our state APCD clients – Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington – to leverage their collective data and explore the relationships between behavioral health, other medical conditions, and social drivers of health. Read more and explore the companion dashboards at our Collective Impact page.