Due to the disproportionately high opioid-related fatality rates among African Americans in under-resourced communities in Illinois, the lack of community resources, the comorbidities experienced by these patients, and the high rate of hospital inpatient recidivism associated with this population when improperly treated, the Department shall ensure that patients, whether enrolled under the Medical Assistance Fee For Service program or enrolled with a Medicaid Managed Care Organization, experiencing opioid-related overdose or withdrawal are admitted on an inpatient status and the provider shall be reimbursed accordingly, when deemed medically necessary, as determined by either the patient's primary care physician, or the physician or other practitioner responsible for the patient's care at the hospital to which the patient presents, using criteria established by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. If it is determined by the physician or other practitioner responsible for the patient's care at the hospital to which the patient presents, that a patient does not meet medical necessity criteria for the admission, then the patient may be treated via observation and the provider shall seek reimbursement accordingly. Nothing in this Section shall diminish the requirements of a provider to document medical necessity in the patient's record.
305 ILCS 5/5-41