Arizona's New SUD Data: 37,000 on Medication, 73% of Overdoses Reversed — and Still 49th in Access

Released April 28, 2026, the AHCCCS Annual Substance Use Treatment Report for State Fiscal Year 2025 offers the clearest single snapshot of Arizona’s addiction treatment system in years. Some of what it shows is genuinely encouraging. Some of it is a ceiling.

What moved: 37,685 AHCCCS members used medication-assisted treatment services in SFY2025, with the majority concentrated in the Central geographic service area — Maricopa County, which is also where opioid settlement money has been flowing most quickly into jails, detox facilities, and community programs. Community partners reported 4,775 overdose reversals over the year. Of suspected non-fatal overdoses where community responders arrived, 73 percent were reversed using naloxone. The average was 1.2 doses per reversal — consistent with the pattern seen nationally as the supply has shifted toward higher-potency fentanyl analogs requiring additional doses to reverse. Peer Housing Homes, which provide recovery-supportive housing for AHCCCS members in active treatment, nearly doubled: from 62 individuals served in FFY2024 to 123 in FFY2025. That’s not a typo — it’s a doubling, from a very small base, which reflects both increased investment and how far from adequate the housing infrastructure remains.

What didn’t: Arizona continues to rank 49th out of 51 jurisdictions (50 states plus D.C.) for behavioral health access. Not 49th in the country — 49th out of 51. The state has 2 million AHCCCS members. Fewer than 1 in 20 Arizonans with opioid use disorder receives buprenorphine or methadone. The report documents this without naming it as the structural failure it is: a state where five people die daily from opioid overdoses, where $1.215 billion in settlement funds is flowing in over 18 years, and where the waiting time to access residential treatment in most county service areas is still measured in weeks, not days.

The settlement money is real and consequential — Arizona is not starting from zero. But the SFY2025 data makes clear that investment is producing incremental gains, not system transformation. Naloxone is reaching more people. MAT enrollment is up. The 37,685 on medication represents progress on the pre-pandemic baseline. At the same time, the distance from where Arizona is to where the need is remains enormous.

For the Rize team specifically: the geographic concentration of MAT access in Maricopa County — documented clearly in this report — is precisely the kind of data point that should inform how the V2 recommendation engine weights facility distance. Someone in Flagstaff or Yuma searching for opioid treatment faces a materially different landscape than someone in Phoenix. The scoring engine should reflect that reality, not average it away.

Read more Arizona-specific coverage at /newsroom/category/arizona-watch.