Credentialing addiction specialists.

Today's efforts to contain healthcare costs have prompted providers to become increasingly accountable for their treatment outcomes. In the field of addiction treatment, requiring specialists to obtain credentials is another way to assure clients and third-party payers of the competence of their providers. In line with this, the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders was established in 1939 as the first national and international certification organization for addiction specialists. The Academy was founded by such leading experts as Howard J. Shaffer, PhD, CAS, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division on Addictions, Harvard Medical School (president of the Academy's Board of Trustees), and trustees Edward Khantzian, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and John Renner, Jr., MD, Clinical Director, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Boston.

These experts saw a need for a core set of competency-based standards for addiction treatment. At the time of the Academy's creation, treatment approaches to the addictions were widely inconsistent. Treatment was offered by a variety of healthcare providers (e.g., psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers) in divergent treatment settings, using varied and often …