Our Campuses and Virginia Medicaid
None of our treatment centers holds a Virginia Medicaid contract right now. If you have other coverage as well, such as an employer plan, admissions can check whether it is one we take. For Virginia Medicaid providers, use the federal treatment locator at FindTreatment.gov or call the number on your Medicaid card.
Call admissions: 855-520-2898
Checked against our contract list on September 25, 2026. Plans change; admissions confirms coverage before you travel.
Yes, and Virginia has given the benefit a name. That turns out to matter. Ask about “rehab” and you get a vague answer. Ask about ARTS and you are speaking the state’s own language.
ARTS stands for Addiction and Recovery Treatment Services. The Department of Medical Assistance Services is unusually specific about what it reaches. Our team can also check your benefits in a single call, rather than leaving you to piece the answer together.
What follows: who runs the benefit, what ARTS covers, where the limits sit, and where our nearest campus is. That last one is a more interesting question in Virginia than in most states. For private plans, see whether insurance covers rehab.
Virginia Medicaid: What It Is and Who Qualifies in Virginia
Virginia Medicaid is run by the Department of Medical Assistance Services, usually written DMAS. Other organizations deliver the care under contract. That is the first thing to grasp about who you will end up speaking to.
DMAS puts it this way on its own behavioral health page. Virginia Medicaid provides an array of behavioral health and addiction and recovery treatment services through Managed Care Organizations, through CCC Plus and Medallion 4.0, and through the Behavioral Health Services Administrator, all of which are contracted by DMAS [1].
One more name belongs in your notes, because it is the one most likely to be printed on your card. DMAS writes that all managed care and fee-for-service Medicaid and FAMIS members are part of the Cardinal Care program, and that as of July 1, 2025 Cardinal Care Managed Care members have five health plan options [9]. Look for that name on the card and quote it on the phone. Where the words on a state web page and the words on your card do not match, the card is the one that gets you to the right desk.
Read that as an org chart. DMAS sets the benefit. A managed care organization or the behavioral health administrator then delivers it and decides your case. So the department is rarely the right number for a specific approval. Knowing that saves a transfer or two.
Whether you qualify is decided by the state, on income, household size, age, pregnancy and disability. An article cannot settle it and should not try. Apply, and let DMAS answer.
Substance Use Treatment Under Virginia Medicaid: the ARTS Benefit
Here is the part worth quoting to anyone who says Medicaid does not pay for real treatment.
DMAS launched ARTS in 2017 as an enhanced substance use disorder treatment benefit [2]. It describes the benefit as providing treatment for those with substance use disorders across the state [1]. The scope statement is the sentence that counts. The ARTS benefit expands access to a comprehensive continuum of addiction treatment services for all enrolled members in Medicaid, FAMIS and FAMIS MOMS, including expanded community-based services and coverage of inpatient detoxification and residential substance use disorder treatment [2].
Two tiers are named in that sentence rather than left to be inferred. Inpatient detoxification. Residential substance use disorder treatment. Both are written into the benefit DMAS describes.
That does not make either one automatic. A named benefit still has to be approved for an individual, on clinical notes, by whoever holds the contract. But it changes the shape of the argument. You are no longer asking whether the thing exists. You are asking whether your case meets it, and that is a far better position. Our page on levels of care will help you name the tier.
Which Levels of Care Are Realistically Funded, and Which Are Not
Assessment, counseling, outpatient treatment, intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization are separate levels, and what your plan needs before it will approve each one is a question for that plan. Ask it, and keep the answer with the date.
Inpatient detoxification and residential treatment both appear in the ARTS scope statement [2]. On paper that is a benefit named rather than implied. What still governs them is medical necessity, written down by a clinician, with a date on it.
If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental-health crisis call or text 988.
Carry that document to every call. A remembered conversation with a doctor is not evidence. A signed assessment is.
Finding care within reach of Virginia
We run no campus inside Virginia. The nearest one open to the general public is The Ranch Pennsylvania, in Wrightsville, about 83 miles north of Arlington and 88 miles north of Alexandria in a straight line. Its own page cards medical detox, inpatient rehab for substance abuse, inpatient rehab for mental health, partial hospitalization programming, intensive outpatient programming and aftercare planning, and it marks the last two before aftercare off-campus. Admissions can tell you which campus fits the level you need and what your plan will pay toward it.
See treatment options in Pennsylvania
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The Ranch Pennsylvania is part of our family of treatment centers. See the Ranch Pennsylvania campus.
Managed Care Plans, and Finding Out Which One Holds Your Benefit
DMAS names the organizations that deliver ARTS on the benefit’s own page. They are Aetna Better Health, Anthem HealthKeepers Plus, Humana Healthy Horizons of Virginia, Sentara Community Plan and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan, alongside Acentra Health [2].
Find yours on your card. Then ask it four things, and keep the answers with the date.
Which ARTS services do you authorize for me, and against what criteria? What do you need from a clinician before you will decide? How long does an approval run, and who asks for more? And if you refuse, what is the appeal route and the deadline?
One Virginia-specific thing to hold onto while you do that. Several of those plan names are also the names of commercial insurers. A Medicaid managed care plan is a separate line of business from anything the same brand sells elsewhere. Aetna Better Health of Virginia is contracted by DMAS for Medicaid members, and that contract has nothing to do with what the same brand sells as commercial insurance. So an answer about one tells you nothing about the other. Our page on getting into rehab covers where the approval falls in the sequence.
The IMD Exclusion, and Why Residential Beds Are Scarce
Virginia writes residential treatment into its benefit [2], and residential beds are still hard to come by. Both are true. The tension is federal rather than Virginian.
Medicaid rules single out a category called an institution for mental diseases. The definition turns on scale and purpose rather than on signage: more than 16 beds, primarily engaged in providing diagnosis, treatment or care of persons with mental diseases [3]. It rests on a facility’s overall character, and it applies whether or not a place is licensed as one [3].
The payment bar is in a second regulation, and its scope is narrower than the word adults. Federal financial participation is not available for services provided to individuals under age 65 who are patients in an institution for mental diseases, unless they are under age 22 and are receiving inpatient psychiatric services [10]. So a program can be appropriate, licensed and close to home and still be awkward to fund, and that is one reason an approval for inpatient and residential care can come back shorter than a clinician asked for. Plan the step-down at admission rather than at discharge. Ask at the outset what follows the residential stay, and who provides it.
When Virginia Medicaid Is Not a Route to a Nearby Campus, and What Is
We do not run a campus inside Virginia. It is better to say that plainly than to imply otherwise.
The nearest campus open to the general public is The Ranch Pennsylvania, in Wrightsville. It sits about 83 miles north of Arlington, 88 miles north of Alexandria and 90 miles north of Fairfax in a straight line. Its own page cards medical detox, inpatient rehab for substance abuse, inpatient rehab for mental health, partial hospitalization programming, intensive outpatient programming and aftercare planning [4]. Two of those carry the campus’s own qualifier: it marks partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient off-campus, and says the partial hospitalization sessions run ten minutes from the main facility [4]. So a journey to Wrightsville is not one address for every level. Our own profile of The Ranch Pennsylvania carries background, and the campus’s page [4] settles anything the two disagree about.
There is a second campus much closer, and it is for a particular group. The IAFF Center of Excellence in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, about 21 miles southeast of Arlington, offers treatment exclusively for fire fighters, dispatchers and first responders who are IAFF members [5]. If that is you, start there rather than driving to Pennsylvania. We have a profile of the IAFF Center of Excellence too, though the campus’s own page [5] is the authority on what it runs and who it admits.
Further south or east, in Richmond or Hampton Roads, the honest answer is that our nearest campus is a serious drive. Admissions is the right place to work out whether that makes sense for the level of care you need. Our list of our campuses sets out the rest of them.
Whether any campus is a funded option under your plan is a question for the plan and for admissions. No coverage claim about an individual policy is made on this site.
Marketplace, Employer and Self-Pay Alternatives
Virginia runs its own health insurance exchange. CMS lists Virginia among the state-based exchanges for plan year 2026, operating Virginia’s Insurance Marketplace, one of 21 such exchanges for that plan year [6].
What any such plan owes you is federal law. Mental and behavioral health services are essential health benefits. So every Marketplace plan includes psychotherapy and counseling, inpatient mental and behavioral health services, and treatment for substance use disorder [7]. A pre-existing condition cannot be a reason to refuse you or to charge you more, and a substance use disorder counts as one [7]. No essential health benefit may carry a yearly or lifetime dollar limit [7].
Federal parity law sits on top of that. Under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, a plan that covers mental health and substance use care may not apply harsher limits to it than it applies to medical and surgical care, and that reaches prior authorization and step therapy as well as visit and day caps [8]. The scope is worth knowing: it applies to non-federal governmental plans with more than 50 employees, to group health plans of private employers with more than 50 employees, and to the individual market [8]. Plans from small employers are not covered directly; they get comparable protection through the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits requirement.
On employer coverage, our Cigna guide sets out what to ask. Paying privately is the third route. The figures we publish sit on our rehab cost page, which puts drug and alcohol rehab overall at $2,000 to $25,000 or more and prices medical detox by the day rather than by the program.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Virginia Medicaid pay for drug and alcohol rehab? Yes. Virginia Medicaid has a named addiction benefit, Addiction and Recovery Treatment Services, and DMAS says it provides treatment for those with substance use disorders across the state. Delivery runs through managed care organizations and a behavioral health administrator under contract. So a specific approval comes from your plan, not from the department itself.
What is the ARTS benefit? ARTS is Addiction and Recovery Treatment Services, launched by DMAS in 2017 as an enhanced substance use disorder treatment benefit. The department describes it as expanding access to a comprehensive continuum of addiction treatment services for members in Medicaid, FAMIS and FAMIS MOMS. That includes community-based services and coverage of inpatient detoxification and residential substance use disorder treatment.
Does Virginia Medicaid cover inpatient detox and residential treatment? Both are written into the ARTS scope statement by name. Named is not the same as automatic. An individual approval still rests on documented medical necessity, and federal rules withhold the federal share of Medicaid spending for people under 65 who are patients in an institution for mental diseases, unless they are under 22 and receiving inpatient psychiatric services. Get the clinical assessment in writing first.
Is Aetna Better Health of Virginia the same as an Aetna plan I buy myself? No, and mixing them up produces wrong answers in both directions. Aetna Better Health of Virginia is a Medicaid managed care plan contracted by DMAS, named on the state’s own ARTS page. What the same brand sells as commercial insurance is a separate line of business, with its own networks and rules. An answer about one says nothing about the other.
Which of your campuses is nearest to Virginia? The Ranch Pennsylvania, in Wrightsville, about 83 miles north of Arlington and 88 miles north of Alexandria in a straight line, is the nearest one open to the general public. The IAFF Center of Excellence in Upper Marlboro, Maryland is far closer at about 21 miles, and it treats fire fighters, dispatchers and first responders who are IAFF members. We run no campus inside Virginia.
Sources
- Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. Behavioral Health. Commonwealth of Virginia. https://www.dmas.virginia.gov/for-providers/benefits-services-for-providers/behavioral-health/
- Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. Addiction and Recovery Treatment Services (ARTS). Commonwealth of Virginia. https://www.dmas.virginia.gov/for-providers/benefits-services-for-providers/behavioral-health/addiction-and-recovery-treatment-services/
- Legal Information Institute. 42 CFR 435.1010 — Definitions relating to institutional status. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/435.1010
- The Recovery Village. The Ranch Pennsylvania — Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/the-ranch-pennsylvania/
- The Recovery Village. IAFF Center of Excellence — Who It Treats and Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/iaff-recovery-center/
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. State-based Exchanges for Plan Year 2026. https://www.cms.gov/cciio/resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/state-marketplaces
- HealthCare.gov. Mental Health and Substance Abuse Coverage. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/mental-health-substance-abuse-coverage/
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). https://www.cms.gov/marketplace/private-health-insurance/mental-health-parity-addiction-equity
- Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. Cardinal Care — For Members. Commonwealth of Virginia. https://www.dmas.virginia.gov/for-members/cardinal-care-members/
- Legal Information Institute. 42 CFR 435.1009 — Institutionalized individuals. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/435.1009
This page is for general information and is not medical advice. Only a licensed clinician who knows your history can tell you what is right for you. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. For free, confidential support 24/7, call or text 988.
Author
Chief Medical Officer,
The Recovery Village
