ASAM Criteria: SUD Treatment Levels of Care
The American Society of Addiction Medicine Criteria are the most widely used set of guidelines for placement, continued stay, and transfer/discharge of patients with substance-related conditions. Defines five main levels of care from outpatient (Level 1) to medically managed inpatient (Level 4).
The five levels of care
- Level 0.5 — Early intervention
- Level 1 — Outpatient services (less than 9 hours/week)
- Level 2 — Intensive outpatient (Level 2.1, 9-19 hours/week) and partial hospitalization (Level 2.5, 20+ hours/week)
- Level 3 — Residential / inpatient (3.1 clinically managed low-intensity, 3.3 population-specific high-intensity, 3.5 clinically managed high-intensity, 3.7 medically monitored intensive inpatient)
- Level 4 — Medically managed intensive inpatient
Why ASAM placement decisions matter for analytics
Most state Medicaid programs and an increasing share of commercial payers require ASAM-based level-of-care decisions for SUD treatment authorization. ASAM-aligned documentation is the difference between an authorized stay and a denied claim. Programs that don't track ASAM dimension scores systematically lose authorization battles they would have won with the documentation.
Where Vizier fits
Vizier surfaces ASAM dimension documentation completeness, level-of-care transitions over a patient's episode, and length-of-stay vs ASAM-recommended duration. The reporting supports both clinical case review and payer auth defense.