Community Care Providers for Veterans

When a Veteran is seeking treatment for medical or behavioral health, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides numerous options beyond VA services through the Veterans Community Care program.

What Is Community Care?

Community care providers (CCPs) are non-military healthcare providers who are contracted with the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a variety of services.¹ There are a few reasons why an individual may opt to see a CCP:

• The existing VA treatment programs are serving a large number of Veterans and cannot serve all the Veterans who require a VA treatment program in a timely manner.
• The specific service you need is not offered at a conveniently located VA facility.
• You don’t live near a VA location that can provide timely service.

In these situations, the role of the community care provider becomes critical to help those Veterans in need. Community care providers will provide services at the same rate you would pay at a VA facility.²

Recovery First as a Community Care Provider

Recovery First Treatment Center, our inpatient drug and alcohol rehab facility near Miami, is a certified Community Care Provider. As 1 of 8 facilities in the American Addiction Centers (AAC) family, we are approved by the VA to provide services through the Veterans Community Care program.

AAC offers a range of services for mental health and substance use disorders similar to those offered through a VA treatment center.

AAC was founded in 2007 and grew to operate numerous treatment facilities throughout the U.S. AAC offers programs in several states including Florida, Nevada, Mississippi, California, Texas, and Rhode Island.

From the beginning, AAC set out to provide quality services to people in need of treatment to recover from addiction and substance misuse. Over the years, AAC has also emerged as a leading provider of services to Veterans in need of treatment.

Addiction Treatment for Veterans

Our staff understands Veteran addiction treatment and knows that when it comes to Veterans, there are often many different circumstances to consider. At AAC, we offer Veteran-specific programming at all of our treatment facilities:

• Recovery First in Hollywood, Florida.
• River Oaks in Riverview, Florida.
• AdCare in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
• Oxford in Etta, Mississippi.
• Greenhouse near Dallas, Texas.
• Desert Hope in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Laguna Treatment Center in Orange County, California.

Many of the staff members at our facilities are Veterans themselves, and some are also in recovery. Having this military background helps AAC staff understand the specific needs of Veterans in addiction treatment.

In our Veterans programs, staff help Veterans to:

• Improve their work-life balance.
• Understand, recognize, and cope with PTSD.
• Protect against stress-related disorders.
• Develop healthy relationships.
• Understand the impact of addiction on family.

The staff uses such evidence-based practices as:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
• Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT).
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR).

The programs also incorporate family and couples counseling, anger management, and 12-Step groups.

In addition to working with Veterans, both programs also offer a focused treatment program for first responders, such as police officers, firefighters, and those who work in corrections.

What Does It Take to Become a CCP?

As the need for Veterans’ addiction treatment is widespread and exceeds the capacity of the existing VA rehab programs to serve all Veterans in need of services, the VA expanded the network of community care providers to make sure Veterans were getting the care they needed.

A provider can become a community care provider by joining networks of providers, such as TriWest and Optum, which manage services for Veterans in different regions of the U.S. American Addiction Centers’ facilities became CCPs by becoming certified by the VA.³

We can provide much-needed substance use treatment for Veterans when the local VA facility is not able to provide services or when the existing network of community care providers through TriWest or Optum cannot serve the needs of Veterans for such services as addiction treatment.

Contact us today at and learn more about our treatment offerings for Veterans. Admissions navigators are available 24/7 to answer your questions and help you start treatment.