Treatment Improvement Protocols

Treatment Improvement Protocols (TIPs) are a series of best-practice manuals for the treatment of substance use and other related disorders. The TIP series is published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA ), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS ).

SAMHSA convenes panels of clinical, research, and administrative experts to produce the content of TIPs, which are distributed to public and private substance abuse treatment facilities and individuals throughout the United States and its territories. TIPs deal with all aspects of substance abuse treatment, from intake procedures to screening and assessment to various treatment methodologies and referral to other avenues of care. TIPs also deal with administrative and programmatic issues such as funding, inter-agency collaboration, training, accreditation, and workforce development. Some TIPs also cover ancillary topics that tend to be associated with substance abuse treatment, such as co-occurring mental health problems, criminal justice issues, housing, and primary care. Once the content of a TIP has been finalized and approved by SAMHSA, the publications are printed through the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO ).

As of May 2013, 56 TIPs have been published. Most are available through SAMHSA's 'store' . SAMHSA also makes newer TIPs available for download in Portable Document Format (PDF), or accessible online through the National Library of Medicine (NLM ). Although TIPs frequently show up on internet auction sites and through used book sellers for varying costs, they are intended to be available for free to the public. SAMHSA does not charge for them.