Addiction kills 767 Americans every single day. If two jumbo jets fell out of the sky every morning, the entire country would be in crisis mode. But because these deaths happen quietly, one family at a time, there’s been no coordinated response.
Even worse, the effectiveness of addiction treatment hasn’t improved in 30 years. Today, only 36% of people are in recovery one year after leaving treatment—exactly the same as in 1993.
That’s why Conquer Addiction is launching a bold, evidence-based initiative to lift recovery rates nationwide—and save one million lives by 2030.
Success Requires Fixing Two Key Problems
To permanently change the addiction treatment system, we must fix two massive gaps:
- The lack of accountability for treatment results
- The lack of guidance on which treatment works best for specific types of patients
Conquer Addiction is launching two research-based initiatives that will finally bring transparency, accountability, and personalized care to addiction treatment. Together, these projects will lift recovery rates nationwide—and save one million lives by 2030.
Hold Treatment Centers and Insurers Accountable for Results
The biggest reason addiction treatment hasn’t improved in decades is painfully simple: no one is measuring what happens after people leave treatment. Without long-term outcomes, excellent programs can’t prove their effectiveness and ineffective programs face no consequences.
Conquer Addiction is solving this by creating the first anonymized nationwide claims registry for addiction treatment. Here’s how it will work:
Step 1: Build a predictive model of long-term recovery
People in the throes of addiction use medical services very differently. Conquer Addiction will use Vista’s one-year post-treatment outcomes data on more than 25,000 patients to create a model that predicts the likelihood an individual is in recovery one year after treatment from their claims and death registry data.
Step 2: Apply the model to the claims data for over a million individuals each year
By running the model on the claims and death registry data for over a million individuals who attend addiction treatment each year, we can identify the treatment centers and insurers with high recovery success rates.
Step 3: Share the results with families, employers, and payers
Conquer Addiction will share our predictions with each of the rehabs and insurers each year. Companies which are proud of their results can choose to share them publicly on Conquer Addiction's website for a nominal fee (currently $199/year).
By searching on Conquer Addiction, families can find the most effective rehabs to send their loved ones to, employers can guide workers to quality care, and insurers can reward the providers who deliver strong outcomes. Additionally, employers who care about their employees will be able to choose insurance companies who are prioritizing quality treatment.
The dramatic improvement in cancer survival rates since the SEER Registry was created in 1973 shows the impact of transparency and accountability on recovery rates. It’s well past time to give individuals struggling with addiction the same advantage.
Match Each Person to the Treatment Most Likely to Work Best for Them
The second barrier to progress is just as damaging: we don’t know which types of treatment work best for which types of patients.
Some people do best with medication-assisted treatment (MAT). Others thrive in therapy-based residential or outpatient programs. Some need both. Right now, it’s guesswork.
Conquer Addiction is launching the largest real-world analysis ever conducted to understand which treatment approach will provide the best chance of long-term recovery for different types of patients. By analyzing comparative outcomes research for 40,000+ patients attending short-term therapy-based addiction treatment and 25,000 patients attending medication-assisted clinics, Conquer Addiction will be able to predict which treatment will be most effective for an individual based upon characteristics such as:
drug of choice & how it is used
how long they have been using problematically
the existence & severity of co-occurring disorders
social stability and support
previous treatment attempts
multiple other demographic factors
For the first time, clinicians, families, and insurers will have a personalized, data-backed roadmap to help them choose the type of treatment most likely to help each person recover.
The Lives This Will Save
By creating national accountability and personalized treatment guidance, we believe we can raise the average one-year recovery rate of individuals attending addiction treatment from 36% to 45%. This translates to:
An additional one million people in recovery by 2030
This is not theoretical. It is achievable. And it is within reach.
Cost to Save One Million Lives: $5 Million
This is a one-time investment to permanently transform addiction treatment nationwide.
Your support will:
- Build an anonymized national claims-based patient registry
- Fund outcomes research for 25,000 patients attending medication-assisted treatment
- Launch the predictive model families and clinicians can use to choose effective care
- Make the entire system self-sustaining going forward
This is not another program that needs annual funding. This is infrastructure that will save lives for decades to come.
Help Us Save One Million Lives
Addiction is stealing 767 lives every day.
We finally have the data, the tools, and the plan to stop it.
What we don’t have yet is the funding.
If this mission speaks to you—if you want to help families avoid the grief so many of us have endured—please join us.
Your support today will help save lives for decades.
Take Action Now
👉Download Conquer Addiction’s Fundraising
👉Have detailed questions? Talk to Joanna