Implementing Contingency Management to ​Treat Stimulant Use Disorder in ​Opioid Treatment Programs​

Session Description: Contingency management is the evidence-based behavioral intervention associated with the most robust evidence for effectively treating individuals with a stimulant use disorder (StimUD). Contingency management provides monetary incentives (such as gift cards) for meeting treatment goals, including stimulant non-use as measured by negative point-of-care urine drug tests (UDTs), rewarding individuals for changing their behaviors. Stimulant use offers a powerful, immediate dopamine rush, and contingency management confronts this challenge by offering immediate financial rewards that can help activate the brain’s reward system, thus encouraging the replacement of stimulants with the incentive to achieve a dopamine release. This keynote session will provide a broad overview of contingency management for treating individuals with a StimUD. Following a review of the research evidence that supports the use of contingency management and a review of the key ingredients of implementing a contingency management program to treat StimUD, the keynote will shift gears to focus on the Recovery Incentives Program: California’s Contingency Management Benefit, a statewide 1115 waiver demonstration pilot underway in nearly 80 sites in 20 counties across the state of California. Ample time will be provided for group discussion and audience Q&A.