Clinical Practice Guidelines

Community Care uses Clinical Practice Guidelines to help you and providers make decisions about treatment and ensure you get the best care. For example, it can be helpful to continue to receive substance use treatment after you stop taking drugs or using alcohol. We recommend staying in treatment for schizophrenia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and substance use disorders because we believe that continued treatment can help you in your recovery.

Community Care uses six guidelines:

  1. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Principles of Drug Addiction: A Research Based Guide (Third Edition – January 2018)
  2. The American Society of Addictive Medicine (ASAM) National Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) - 2020
  3. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) Practice Guideline for the Pharmacological Treatment of Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)
  4. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Guideline for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (October 2019)
  5. The APA Practice Guideline for The Treatment of Patients with Schizophrenia (Third Edition–Fall 2020)
  6. The American Thoracic Society’s (ATS) guideline for Initiating Pharmacologic Treatment in Tobacco-Dependent Adults

Copies of the practice guidelines we use are also available online:

The guidelines are reviewed annually by Community Care. We welcome your feedback on these guidelines. If you would like to more information about these guidelines or the related conditions, please call the Community Care office in your county.

You can also get additional information online for: