The guideline describes the critical decision points in the Management of Substance Use Disorder and provides clear and comprehensive evidence based recommendations incorporating current information and practices for practitioners throughout the DoD and VA Health Care systems. The guideline is intended to improve patient outcomes and local management of patients with substance use disorder.

This Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Handbook specified the Mental Health Services that are to be available to all enrolled Veterans and lays out minimum requirements for VHA Mental Health Services.

The BAM is a 17-item measure of addiction problem severity that is designed to support measurement-based treatment in SUD specialty care settings. The BAM may be administered as a clinical interview (in-person or telephonically) or via patient self-report; and, it typically takes about 5 minutes to complete. The BAM retrospectively examines the patient’s past 30-days and includes items that assess Risk factors for substance use (items 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, & 15), Protective factors that support sobriety (items 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, & 16), and drug and alcohol Use (items 4-7G). Furthermore, the BAM produces composite scores for the three aforementioned domains. A patient’s clinical status may be assessed by examining individual BAM items and/or composite scores. Initial psychometric evaluation of the BAM reveals good test-retest reliability. Please contact the Philadelphia CESATE for more information: (215) 823-5800, x6181; Dominick.DePhilippis@va.gov.