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If you live in rural Utah and cannot afford treatment, a county funding decision made in June may matter more than any insurance question.
Grand County commissioners renewed a year of opioid settlement funding on June 16, and a share goes directly toward low-cost rehab in Utah for people who are uninsured or paying out of pocket.
Three Moab organizations split the money across clinical treatment, peer coaching, and free community classes.
Who Qualifies for Free or Low-Cost Treatment
The outpatient recovery center received roughly $8,500 of this year’s allocation and uses it to offset treatment costs for uninsured and underinsured patients.
About one third of its patients are uninsured or pay for care themselves. Clinic Director Doug Caylor said financial assistance is what allows many of them to keep coming back, and that patients tell staff nearly every day they could not continue care without it.
The reporting does not spell out an income threshold, so the practical step is to ask directly. When you call any publicly funded program, ask whether it has settlement-funded, grant-funded, or sliding scale slots, and what documentation it needs.
How to Access These Resources
Grand County has received annual payments from Utah’s share of the national opioid settlements since 2022. Under the settlement agreement, the money has to go toward approved opioid remediation work.
This year’s estimated total was $42,367, split 60% to Utah Support Advocates for Recovery Awareness and 20% each to the recovery center and a local wellness nonprofit.
That structure repeats across the country. Settlement dollars flow to a county or city, which routes them to local nonprofits and clinics, so you do not apply for settlement money. You apply to the organizations receiving it.
The center, open since 2022, is the only full-service outpatient recovery center in southeastern Utah, with the nearest comparable programs more than 100 miles away in Price and in Grand Junction, Colorado.
It logged more than 3,300 patient visits last year across 383 unique patients. Services include medications for opioid and other substance use disorders, counseling, integrated primary and mental health care, case management and harm reduction.
Staff also help with housing and transportation barriers, which are often why people fall out of care.
Free Recovery Programs Beyond the Clinic
The wellness nonprofit’s roughly $8,500 share keeps about 20 recovery-focused classes running each month at no charge, including recovery yoga, trauma-informed yoga, community acupuncture, Recovery Dharma meetings, recovery hikes, and creative arts programming.
Executive Director Breann Davis said the funding goes straight into programming because the organization runs on volunteers and contracted instructors rather than salaried staff. Participation has doubled over the past year.
Davis said the focus is what happens after addiction treatment, when staying well depends on new routines and connection, and that she sees “community and connection” as the antidotes to addiction.
The peer recovery organization takes the largest share, roughly $25,400, for recovery coaching, recovery groups, harm reduction education, and support for people involved with the justice system.
Between April 2024 and March 2026, it delivered more than 1,100 coaching sessions to 109 people and ran 444 recovery groups attended by more than 2,400 participants.
Its jail program matters if someone you love is incarcerated. Staff run weekly recovery groups inside the Grand County jail and help people build a plan before release, and people leaving jail receive naloxone, fentanyl test strips, overdose prevention supplies, and local resource information at no cost.
Moab program manager Lanette Denton, who is in long-term recovery herself, said she left jail repeatedly without resources, and that a safety plan before release changes what is possible.
Free and Low-Cost Rehabs in Utah
Overdose deaths in Grand County fell from 31 per 100,000 residents in 2023 to 20 in 2024 and 10 in 2025, while the statewide rate held around 17 to 18.
The reporting presents those figures alongside the funding rather than as a result of it, so treat them as context.
Rehabs.org provides a listing of rehab facilities that offer free and low-cost services. Call
800-914-7089
(
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to learn more about your treatment options.
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