Overview
Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOPs) address substance use disorders and other mental health disorders by structuring about 10-20 hours of therapy a week so that patients can continue to live at home, maintain full-time employment, or take a full-time class schedule at school. Generally, patients step down from a 24/7 inpatient facility or residential center to a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) that takes full-time attention, and then they step down again into an IOP. It’s very common for a single entity or center to manage all three or some combination of the two, especially since IOP can just involve the exact same resources as PHP but for shorter periods of time.