Critics say Michigan’s addiction treatment locator plagued by access and data issues

By Kyle Davidson
Michigan Advance

LANSING — A group of individuals working in addiction treatment and health policy are calling on the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to overhaul its addiction treatment location tool, citing concerns with its accessibility and accuracy.

Members of the Opioid Policy Institute and the Michigan Society of Addiction Medicine presented their concerns to the Michigan House Oversight Subcommittee on Public Health and Food Safety in February, though Jonathan Stoltman, the institute’s director, has continued to raise questions about the quality of the platform, as well as the state’s decision to promote the tool.

Since the tool’s initial release in November 2024, Stoltman said that he and others working to improve access to addiction treatment made repeated appeals to the state to improve the system, without success.

An essential part of any government website or application is accessibility, Stoltman said, telling Michigan Advance that the platform does not function in a way that allows peer navigators or individuals seeking treatment to find the treatment information they need.

When the Advance reviewed the tool on a mobile device, it displayed only a partial map, and the “full screen” option opened an even smaller view. Additionally, while the interface includes filters, a central map and a results table, navigation is difficult because mobile controls interfere with zooming and selection. Attempts to use other features can also shift the display, pushing information offscreen.

“If I’m a community member or if I’m a peer navigator that’s working with someone in the community, pull it up on my phone, it’s like, I don’t even know how you would use that to find the information that you needed,” Stoltman said.

As the U.S. remains in an overdose crisis where treatment access is a challenge, Stoltman emphasized that behavior change is critical for someone with an addiction.

“When you have someone in that moment that’s interacting with a thing that says, like, ‘I’m looking for treatment, either for myself or for one of my loved ones,’ that is a crucial thing to help them navigate as smoothly as possible,” Stoltman said. 

While the desktop version of the tool is not the most user-friendly, Stoltman said, the mobile version is completely broken.

Additionally, many individuals facing addiction do not have ready access to a computer, or another screen outside of a mobile phone, Stoltman said.

When it comes to the accessibility of state websites and applications, Stoltman said it’s not simply something that is nice to have, but something that the state regulates. He pointed to the state’s digital standards, which require development teams to “utilize responsive design techniques to ensure content adapts dynamically to various screen sizes, orientations, and resolutions.”

Questions on accuracy, data privacy arise

Issues with the platform go beyond its accessibility. 

While testifying to the House Oversight Subcommittee, Colleen Lane, an addiction medicine physician working in Grand Rapids, said that of the seven addiction clinics she works at across West Michigan, none are listed on the state’s treatment locator. 

“All of those sites are open daily for walk-in hours and same-day access to assessment and treatment for opioid, alcohol and stimulant use disorders,” Lane said. “Because of our same-day access, we have been key partners for high-risk patients, including those recently who have left incarceration, people who have recently experienced an overdose, pregnant individuals and adolescents.”

When Lane asked for their facilities to be added, she was told that the locator only lists locations with substance use disorder licensed programs. 

“An SUD program is required to have a license for behavioral health or if they’re a detox center or a methadone clinic,” Lane said. “This means an outpatient addiction specialist clinic, like all seven of mine, or any other board-certified addiction medicine physician who provides evidence-based ongoing, complex medical management of patients with substance use disorders may not, and in many cases, are not listed on the locator.”

State Rep. Matthew Bierlein (R-Vassar), who chairs the House Oversight Subcommittee on Public Health and Food Security, told the Advance that when he looked at facilities in his home county he saw one facility that had been closed and a juvenile detention center listed among the options for treatment. 

While Betsy’s Place in Caro – the closed facility – was no longer listed on the state’s treatment locator as of April 10. Wolverine Human Services – the detention center – remained listed. 

Ashley Shukait, a public health consultant and harm reductionist, raised concerns about patients who are on Medicaid. 

While the platform can filter for facilities that accept Medicaid, those locations did not appear on the map when the Advance selected the filter on mobile devices. 

Shukait noted that there are different types of Medicaid plans, and that the treatment locator does not supply information on which plans are accepted at the facilities listed. Even when an individual calls the phone number for one of the listed providers, they are instructed to call their prepaid inpatient health plan. 

The tool also does not provide meaningful information on what services each provider offers, Shukait said, noting that some facilities do not offer treatment for individuals who use certain substances.

Stoltman also raised concerns that the state’s website does not offer protections against tracking and digital fingerprinting, which can be used by third parties to identify individuals seeking treatment and target them with advertising in the future.

“The best practices would be to design it in a way that doesn’t redisclose that data to anyone,” Stoltman said.

He questioned the state’s decision to release its own treatment locator given that a federal resource, findtreatment.gov, is already available.

“It works on mobile. It doesn’t have these privacy issues like this one does,” Stoltman said. “It is not clear to me why they decided they needed to develop one in-house.”

Finding a trusted provider for treatment is a gauntlet, Stoltman said, arguing that the state of Michigan should be doing everything it can to make that process as good an experience as possible. 

Alongside concerns that people may give up on seeking treatment due to the lack of utility from the tool, Shukait noted that individuals going through withdrawals need to be able to access care quickly. 

“Withdrawals are deadly, and like it’s a ticking time bomb and you have to use again or get sick,” Shukait said, warning that after the fourth or fifth call, that window may be gone.

Future of treatment locator in question

Speaking with the Advance on April 6, Bierlein said he was able to have a productive meeting with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services before the start of the House’s spring recess on March 24.

He explained that the substance use locator pulls data from the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs on whether facilities are licensed to provide substance use disorder treatment, regardless of the type of facility or provider. 

The department also created this tool itself, without any additional funding from the state, for internal use by the department, Bierlein explained.

“The development of the dashboard was completed internally by staff as part of regular job responsibilities and no additional funds were expended,” Lynn Sutfin, a public information officer for the department, confirmed in an emailed statement. “The project used existing Microsoft 365 tools, which are already licensed and in use across the organization, to design and implement the dashboard.”

While the platform was useful for employees within the department, the deficiencies came through when it was released publicly, Bierlein said.

“It wasn’t designed for public use,” Bierlein said. “It wasn’t designed to be a user-friendly website, and there were no kind of, like, check and balance to see if the data was good, because for them, internally, it did what it needed to do and they just wanted to share it.”

State agencies that put out information about access to services are supposed to coordinate with 2-1-1, the state’s toll-free community service line, which aims to connect residents with assistance on housing, employment, education, healthcare and mental health, among other resources.

However, because the platform was designed for internal use, it did not go through this process, Bierlein said. 

“I think it’s something that they’re more than happy to look at if they want to continue providing this kind of database for the public,” Bierlein said. In the meantime, he’s asked the department to stop promoting it as a resource. 

While Stoltman raised concerns about the platform’s Americans With Disabilities Act compliance, Bierlein said his discussion focused on how the tool was created, what resources were used to develop it, and whether the tool should be promoted or even remain available to the public.

“If we’re going to take it down, it’s not something they need to worry about,” Bierlein said. “If they’re going to leave it up, it’s really something we should be talking about.”

Bierlein told Michigan Advance he planned to check in with the department when the Legislature returns from its break, the week of April 13. 

On Friday, Sutfin said the department is exploring options for “a more comprehensive tool capable of meeting the accessibility needs of all users.” She noted that outside of the treatment locator tool, there are other resources to help residents find treatment, including the 988 Michigan Crisis and Access Line, the federal treatment locator and MDHHS’s Get Help Now map for those with Medicaid or who are uninsured.

Both Stoltman and Shukait offered recommendations on how the state could improve its platform, should they choose to maintain it.

Shukait recommended adding boxes with contact information for each of the prepaid inpatient health plans that pop-up when someone clicks for providers that accept Medicaid. 

More information on the providers would also be beneficial, Shukait said, noting that information about whether providers accept patients with co-occurring disorders or who are pregnant would be much more helpful. 

“Those are some of the hardest populations to get into treatment,” Shukait said.

For now, Stoltman said it makes the most sense for the state to redirect web traffic from the site to findtreatment.gov, noting that this will also help users who found the website through a QR code or other promotions the department has sent out. 

While he remained skeptical of the state’s ability to assemble and run a functional website, Stoltman said any future efforts should be developed alongside individuals working in addiction treatment, including providers who are not currently in the system.

He also recommended a baseline assessment to determine the benefits of developing a state-specific one, rather than using the national tool.

When asked if he would support providing the Department of Health and Human Services with additional funding or other resources to improve its platform, Bierlein said the state can work with the tools that already exist, noting that the department had not asked for any funding to redevelop the platform.

— Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.