Our Methodology

How RehabProviders.org sources, processes, and presents public SAMHSA behavioral health data, what the fields mean, and why our listings carry no ratings.

This page describes where our data originates, how we handle it, and what the information does and does not represent. Being transparent about method matters more than any single number.

Primary sources

Our provider data comes from public datasets published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The two sources we rely on most are:

• FindTreatment.gov, the federal behavioral health treatment locator.
• The National Substance Use and Mental Health Services Survey (N-SUMHSS), which collects facility-level information on services, settings, and payment options.

These are United States government works and are generally treated as public domain. We keep source provenance on every record, including the source name, the dataset identifier, and the processing date.

How we process the data

1. Acquire. We download the published SAMHSA facility data covering the six care types listed on this site.
2. Normalize. We standardize names, addresses, geographic fields, phone numbers, and identifiers so records can be joined and compared.
3. Organize. We group facilities by state, county, city, and ZIP code and by the care type reported to SAMHSA.
4. Render. We display the reported values as published, with the limits of each field explained on the page.

Why there are no ratings

SAMHSA does not publish overall star ratings, inspection scores, or quality grades for treatment programs. Unlike the nursing home star-rating system, there is no federal composite score for addiction or mental health treatment. Rather than invent one, this directory shows none. Any page or site that assigns treatment programs an "overall rating" is using a measure that is not in the public SAMHSA data.

What the fields mean

N-SUMHSS reports what a facility says about itself: the types of care offered (for example, outpatient or residential), the service settings, medications used to treat opioid use disorder such as methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone, the populations served, the languages spoken, and the payment options accepted, including Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and sliding fee scales. These are declarations, not endorsements, and they can lag real-world changes.

Limitations

• Data trails real-world change and may not capture recent openings, closures, or staffing shifts.
• Self-reported fields may be incomplete, and a blank field does not mean a service is unavailable.
• Inclusion in this directory is not a recommendation or a statement about quality.
• Our aggregation is mechanical and makes no adjustment for local differences in cost or availability.

If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 911. For a suicidal, mental health, or substance use crisis in the United States, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). The SAMHSA National Helpline is 1-800-662-HELP (1-800-662-4357), a free, confidential, 24/7 treatment referral service. You can also search for services at FindTreatment.gov.

Corrections and updates

We re-pull source data whenever SAMHSA publishes updates and correct errors in our own processing. To report a problem, use the contact page. See Data Sources for the exact datasets and licenses.

RehabProviders.org is an independent informational directory. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by SAMHSA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or any U.S. government agency. Informational only, not medical advice.