Pennsylvania addiction treatment referrals made straight from hospital emergency rooms have reached nearly 68,000. If someone you love has survived an overdose, that number matters, because the hours right after a hospital visit are the most dangerous ones. The state has spent a decade building a program around exactly that window.
The Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs announced the milestone on August 4 in Lancaster. Secretary Dr. Latika Davis-Jones said hospitals have recorded roughly 93,400 warm handoff encounters, which produced about 67,600 direct referrals to treatment.
What Is a Warm Handoff?
The idea is simple. After an overdose, the risk of another one is high, and that risk peaks soon after someone walks out of the emergency room. A warm handoff replaces the discharge paperwork and a phone number with a person and a plan.
Here is how it works in practice. Designated staff talk with eligible patients about treatment options. If the patient agrees, staff arrange an assessment. Then they coordinate the referral, which may be to treatment, recovery support, case management, or medication for addiction, before the patient leaves the building.
Davis-Jones described the difference as giving people “a direct and personal connection to care” rather than leaving them to navigate the system alone.
Where Pennsylvania Addiction Treatment Handoffs Happen
Warm handoff programs now run in nearly 170 hospitals across the state. DDAP built the network over the past decade of working with Pennsylvania’s 47 Single County Authorities, the county offices that oversee local addiction services.
In Lancaster County, warm handoff programs operate at Lancaster General Hospital, Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center, UPMC Lititz, and WellSpan Ephrata Community Hospital.
If you’re trying to find out whether a hospital near you participates, your county’s Single County Authority is the office to call. Every county has one, and they can also tell you what publicly funded Pennsylvania addiction treatment is available in your area.
Understanding Overdose and What Comes After
An overdose happens when someone takes more of a drug than the body can safely handle. With opioids such as fentanyl, heroin, or prescription painkillers, breathing slows and can stop. Naloxone, sold as Narcan, can reverse an opioid overdose within minutes and is available over the counter at pharmacies and free through many county health offices.
Surviving an overdose does not treat the underlying condition. That is why the period afterward is so important, and why signs of addiction are worth knowing:
- Needing more of a substance to get the same effect
- Feeling sick, shaky, or anxious when the substance wears off
- Trying to cut back and not being able to
- Pulling away from family, friends, work, or school
- Continuing to use even after something serious has gone wrong
If several of these sound familiar for you or someone in your family, an assessment is a reasonable next step whether or not there has ever been an overdose.
What the State Is Adding Next
Pennsylvania’s 2026-27 budget includes $5 million to sustain walk-in behavioral health crisis stabilization centers, with priority given to regions that have limited access to immediate in-person care. These centers are generally open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and take people without an appointment.
For families, that is a second door. The warm handoff covers people who reach an emergency room. A crisis stabilization center is somewhere to go before things reach that point.
Finding Addiction Treatment in Pennsylvania
Practical steps if you are looking right now:
- Call your county’s Single County Authority and ask what publicly funded treatment is available and how to get an assessment.
- If someone is currently in a hospital emergency department, ask staff directly whether the hospital has a warm handoff program and request it before discharge.
- Ask any program you are considering whether it offers medication for opioid use disorder, since that is the clinical standard for opioid addiction.
- Get naloxone and keep it at home. Many Pennsylvania county offices distribute it for free.
- Contact the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357, which is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day in English and Spanish.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Addictions.com lists addiction treatment centers across Pennsylvania, searchable by county, level of care, and insurance accepted.
