Most people who end up in a Partial Hospitalization Program didn’t know what one was before they needed it.

PHP isn’t a term that comes up in everyday conversation. It doesn’t have the cultural familiarity of rehab or therapy. For most people, the first time they hear it is during an admissions call — and at that point, there’s already a lot to process. 

This page is a plain language explanation of what PHP is, who it’s designed for, what a typical week actually looks like, and how to know whether it might be the right fit.  

What Does PHP Stand For in Addiction Treatment? 

PHP stands for Partial Hospitalization Program.

It is the highest level of outpatient addiction treatment — meaning it provides more clinical structure and contact hours than a standard intensive outpatient program, but doesn’t require someone to sleep at a facility the way residential treatment does. 

The “partial hospitalization” name comes from the fact that it was originally designed as an alternative to full inpatient hospitalization for people who needed intensive daily clinical support but didn’t require 24-hour medical monitoring. In addiction treatment, PHP fills the space between residential care and standard outpatient — structured enough to support early recovery, flexible enough to keep someone in their real life. 

At Green Hill Recovery, PHP runs five days a week. It is designed for people who need daily clinical contact to stay stable, build skills, and begin the work of sustainable recovery. 

Who Is PHP For? 

PHP is not the right level of care for everyone — and it isn’t designed to be. ASAM criteria — the standardized clinical framework used across addiction treatment — guides the placement decision based on a multidimensional picture of where someone is starting. 

PHP tends to be the appropriate level of care for people who are: 

• Entering treatment for the first time with significant substance use and no existing recovery foundation 
• Stepping down from detox or residential treatment and need structured daily support before transitioning to less intensive care 
• Managing a co-occurring mental health condition alongside substance use — depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, bipolar disorder — that requires more clinical attention than IOP provides 
• At elevated risk of returning to use during unstructured time, particularly in the early weeks of recovery 
• In an environment that doesn’t strongly support recovery — where home, relationships, or daily circumstances create significant pressure that daily clinical contact can help offset 

The goal of the ASAM-based assessment at Green Hill isn’t to place someone at the most intensive level of care available. It’s to identify where someone is clinically and match the level of care to that reality. 

What Happens in PHP?  

This is the question most people have once they understand what PHP is in principle. What does it mean in practice? What does a person actually do for five days a week? 

The Structure of a PHP Week at Green Hill 

PHP at Green Hill is built around structured group therapy as the core clinical activity. Groups run during daytime hours and cover evidence-based curriculum grounded in ACT — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — DBT — Dialectical Behavior Therapy — and Community Reinforcement Approach. These aren’t open-ended support groups. They’re skill-building sessions with specific clinical objectives, run by licensed clinicians. 

A typical week in PHP includes: 

• Morning and afternoon group sessions covering topics like understanding triggers, building coping skills, managing difficult emotions, preventing relapse, strengthening relationships, and reconnecting with meaningful pursuits 
• Individual therapy with your primary therapist to work through what’s coming up personally, track progress, and adjust your treatment plan as your needs change 
• BAM assessments — Brief Addiction Monitor — used to track movement in risk and protective factors over the course of treatment, giving clinicians a clear picture of what’s shifting and where more work is needed 
• Psychiatry and medication management for patients who need it, provided through AIM — Green Hill’s sibling psychiatric practice within the same care system — without leaving the care network 
• Recovery community integration — connecting patients with outside recovery supports as part of Green Hill’s Recovery-Oriented System of Care framework, so community infrastructure is being built from day one rather than after discharge 

The schedule is structured enough to provide daily stability and consistent clinical contact. It’s also designed to keep someone present in their real life — returning home each evening, managing real-world responsibilities, and beginning to apply what’s being built in groups to the actual circumstances of their life. 

How Long Does PHP Last? 

There is no universal timeline for PHP. Length of stay is clinically determined — based on where someone’s risk and protective factors are shifting and whether the stability needed to step down to IOP has been established. 

For most people, PHP lasts several weeks. Some people move through more quickly. Others need more time before the clinical picture supports stepping down. The timeline is driven by clinical progress, not by a calendar or an insurance default. 

What Makes PHP Different From Residential or Inpatient Treatment? 

This distinction matters because people sometimes hear “five days a week” and assume PHP is close to residential. It isn’t. 

In residential or inpatient treatment, someone lives at the facility. Their entire environment is controlled. There is no commute, no going home at the end of the day, no navigating the real world between sessions. That level of containment is appropriate for certain clinical situations — acute withdrawal, significant psychiatric instability, environments so dangerous that removal is necessary for safety. 

PHP keeps someone in their life. They go home at the end of the day. They manage their household, their family, their commute. The real world is present — which is both the challenge and the point. PHP is designed to build recovery skills while someone is still exposed to the actual circumstances of their life, rather than in a protected environment where those circumstances are temporarily removed. 

This is why PHP works well as a step-down from residential treatment. The clinical intensity is maintained. The real-world exposure begins. The skills being built in groups get tested and applied in real time rather than saved for after discharge. 

PHP for Dual Diagnosis: Can You Treat Addiction and Mental Health at the Same Time? 

Yes — and at Green Hill, that’s not the exception. It’s the standard.

A significant portion of people who enter PHP are managing both a substance use disorder and a co-occurring mental health condition, a dual diagnosis disorder. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, OCD, and bipolar disorder are among the most common — and they’re frequently, in part, what the substance use was managing in the first place. 

Why Treating One Without the Other Doesn’t Work 

Someone who gets sober but whose depression remains untreated is carrying the same underlying condition that drove the substance use. Someone whose anxiety isn’t addressed will eventually return to whatever was making it tolerable. The substance use was a solution to something — and until that something is treated, the pull toward it doesn’t go away. 

PHP provides the clinical contact hours needed to address both simultaneously. That depth of treatment is one of the primary reasons PHP is recommended over IOP for people with significant co-occurring conditions — IOP simply doesn’t provide enough contact hours to treat both with the frequency and consistency they require. 

How Green Hill Treats Dual Diagnosis in PHP 

For patients who need psychiatric evaluation, medication management, or TMS alongside group-based treatment, AIM — Green Hill’s sibling psychiatric practice operating within the same system — provides that support without requiring patients to navigate separate providers or duplicate intake processes. The clinical teams communicate directly. Care is coordinated rather than fragmented. 

The group curriculum in PHP is built to address both presentations simultaneously: 

• ACT — Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — evidence-based for substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and OCD 
• DBT — Dialectical Behavior Therapy — evidence-based for emotional dysregulation, trauma, and the co-occurring conditions that most commonly accompany addiction 

Each patient also works with an individual therapist throughout PHP — so the deeper personal work happening in one-on-one sessions runs alongside and directly informs the group-based curriculum. 

In Green Hill’s 2025 outcomes data, 84% of patients showed measurable improvement in risk factor scores over the course of treatment — a reflection of what happens when both substance use and underlying mental health are treated together at the depth the clinical picture requires. 

Does Insurance Cover PHP for Addiction Treatment? 

Most major insurance plans cover PHP for substance use treatment, and Green Hill is in-network with most major insurance providers. Green Hill was also recognized as a 2026 Center of Excellence by Evernorth Behavioral Health — a designation that reflects the clinical quality and outcomes data insurers use to evaluate treatment programs. 

Coverage varies by plan. The specifics — deductibles, copays, authorization requirements — differ from one policy to the next. The admissions team verifies benefits as part of the intake process and walks through what coverage looks like before treatment begins, so there are no surprises once someone has committed to starting. 

If you’re not sure what your plan covers, that’s one of the first conversations the admissions team can have with you. Finding out what your benefits are doesn’t require a commitment to treatment. 

What Comes After PHP? 

PHP is the beginning of a continuum, not the whole of it. 

The typical pathway after PHP is a step-down to Green Hill’s Intensive Outpatient Program — IOP — which runs three days a week and continues the same evidence-based curriculum at a reduced frequency that reflects the stability built in PHP.

The transition to IOP is clinically determined, based on how someone is doing and whether the foundation is solid enough to carry through fewer contact hours per week. 

After IOP, Green Hill’s recovery management program supports the transition out of structured treatment — maintaining clinical connection and accountability during the period when external structure is reducing but recovery is still being consolidated. 

For patients who need ongoing psychiatric support, medication management, or individual therapy after PHP ends, AIM provides that continuity within the same care system. The clinical relationships built during PHP carry forward rather than ending at discharge. 

Take The First Step

PHP can feel like a significant commitment before someone has started. Five days a week sounds like a lot when the rest of life is still happening. 

What tends to shift after the first week is the recognition that the structure is doing something — that the daily contact, the clinical relationships, the consistency of showing up is creating conditions that unstructured recovery doesn’t. The commitment starts to feel less like a burden and more like a foundation. 

If you’re trying to figure out whether PHP might be the right fit — for yourself or someone you care about — the place to start is a short and confidential screening with the Green Hill admissions team.

That conversation doesn’t commit you to anything. It gives you a clear picture of where you are clinically and what level of care makes sense given that picture.