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The SASSI (Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory) is a proprietary self-report screen published by The SASSI Institute in adult SASSI-4 and adolescent SASSI-A3 editions, whose publisher decision rules return a high or low probability of a substance use disorder. Addiction, DUI, probation, child-welfare, and EAP evaluators use it to decide who needs full assessment; it never diagnoses. This page covers how to document a SASSI result, with a fictional sample.
Addiction counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other human-service professionals who file the Institute's qualification form (Pearson lists the family at qualification level B); staff without professional training may administer and score under supervision; the qualified clinician interprets, gives feedback, and writes the report
Courts, probation and DUI programs, drug courts, child-welfare and custody evaluators, EAP and DOT Substance Abuse Professionals, treatment admission staff, referring clinicians, attorneys reviewing records, and payers
5 to 10 chart lines or one report paragraph (edition, mode, time frame, validity, category and limits, profile hypotheses, conclusion, recommendation, records) · administration and scoring about 15 minutes, plus interview and collateral review
Proprietary self-report screening inventory (face-valid scales plus subtle or indirect scales, validity indicators, and publisher decision rules that yield a high or low probability of a substance use disorder)
Court-ordered DUI and probation evaluations, drug-court and diversion intake, child-welfare and custody assessments, EAP and post-violation DOT evaluations, addiction treatment admission and level-of-care workups, adolescent juvenile-justice and school referrals
The SASSI Institute (Springville, Indiana): Adult SASSI-4 (2016) and Adolescent SASSI-A3 (2020) with proprietary items, scoring, and decision rules; no statute, payer policy, or federal rule names it; described here for documentation, no test content reproduced
The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory is a family of brief, copyrighted self-report questionnaires published by The SASSI Institute of Springville, Indiana. Glenn A. Miller developed the original adult SASSI in the 1980s and an adolescent version followed in 1990; the current editions are the Adult SASSI-4 (user guide by Lazowski, Kimmell, and Baker; 2016) for ages 18 and up and the Adolescent SASSI-A3 (2020) for ages 13 to 18, both validated against DSM-5 substance use disorder diagnoses and both carrying a prescription drug scale. The publisher states a fourth- to fifth-grade reading level for the adult form, about fourth grade for the adolescent form, and about 15 minutes to administer and score. Each questionnaire has two parts: face-valid items on which the respondent acknowledges alcohol and other-drug experiences over a time frame the evaluator selects, and true-false items that feed subtle or indirect scales whose relationship to substance use is not obvious to the respondent, with validity indicators alongside. The publisher's decision rules, printed only in the edition's user guide and applied by its scoring key or the SASSI Online platform, combine the scales into a single categorical result: High Probability or Low Probability of a substance use disorder. A separate adult Spanish SASSI (publisher-reported accuracy of 84 percent, validated in its own sample) is not a translation of the SASSI-4, and Pearson lists the family at qualification level B. As of September 2026 the Institute has announced no SASSI-5 or SASSI-A4.
Three facts carry the documentation. First, the result is a screening classification and the publisher says so: the Institute's guidance describes it as one piece of information for a diagnostic evaluation, states that the SASSI cannot determine whether a client is currently drinking, and warns that someone in long recovery will more than likely still screen as high probability because the subtle scales reflect traits that do not change quickly, so a high result never establishes current use or impairment and a low result never rules a disorder out. Second, everything that produces the result is proprietary: the items, scales, T scores, norms, profiles, score reports, and scoring keys are copyrighted, the copyright notice bars reproducing, paraphrasing, or translating the questions and copying the materials into computer storage, and the decision rules are neither published nor reproducible outside the licensed key or platform, which is why a defensible note reports the category in the publisher's words and keeps the scored profile in the testing file. Third, the subtle scales are contested: the Institute reports 92 percent overall accuracy for the SASSI-4 and 89 percent for the SASSI-A3 against clinician DSM-5 diagnoses, while the leading independent review (Feldstein and Miller, 2007) found sensitivity similar to public-domain screens, a high false-positive rate, and no empirical evidence for the claimed unique advantage of the indirect scales. That is the boundary against the CAGE, AUDIT-C, and DAST-10, which are short, transparent screens with published scoring, and against the substance use assessment, where DSM-5 criteria and the diagnosis belong.
The SASSI is administered wherever a substance use question carries consequences and the respondent has a reason to minimize. In the publisher's SASSI-4 validation sample, 46 percent of respondents came from substance use treatment programs, 18 percent from criminal justice programs (community corrections, probation and parole, and drug courts), 16 percent from private practices, 9 percent from behavioral health centers, 6 percent from DWI and DOT screening and education programs, and 5 percent from government and community social service programs, which is a fair map of who charts it: addiction counselors at admission and level-of-care review beside the biopsychosocial assessment; evaluators completing court-ordered DUI evaluations, presentence and probation assessments, and drug-court intake whose write-ups become a court report or a forensic evaluation report; child-welfare and custody evaluators (the Institute's qualification form lists child protective services among user settings); employee assistance programs and DOT Substance Abuse Professionals in post-violation evaluations, where the fitness-for-duty evaluation page covers the occupational standard; and adolescent programs, schools, and juvenile courts using the SASSI-A3. The reader is rarely the author: a judge, probation officer, caseworker, employer, or opposing attorney will read the classification adversarially, which is why the entry has to state the edition, time frame, validity, category, limits, and the independent basis for the conclusion. Neighbors win in three places: the AUDIT-C and DAST-10 for routine primary care and SBIRT screening, where a transparent tool is expected and named in CMS guidance; the CAGE when four questions at the bedside are all the encounter allows; and a full substance use assessment whenever the question is diagnosis, severity, or placement, which no screen answers, with the treatment work that follows carried in a relapse prevention plan.
No statute, payer, or accreditor prescribes a SASSI note format, and the publisher's contribution is a user guide, a set of appropriate-use and training statements, and a copyright notice that keeps the items, keys, and rules out of anything you write. What survives a court, a probation officer, or a records request is an entry that names the edition, form, and administration mode, states the time frame the respondent was given for the face-valid items, records the reading and comprehension conditions, reports the validity review in words, states the result category in the publisher's exact terms with its published limits, describes the profile qualitatively as hypotheses, and shows that the diagnostic conclusion and recommendation rest on interview, collateral, records, and toxicology rather than on the screen. Each element below carries the pitfall that most often undermines it.
Edition, form, and administration mode. Write the exact instrument: Adult SASSI-4, Adolescent SASSI-A3, or Spanish SASSI, with the language, and how it was given: paper questionnaire scored with the publisher's key, SASSI Online (which returns the decision-rule outcome, a scale graph, and a narrative report), or the publisher's audio administration, plus who proctored it and where. Results from the retired SASSI-3 and SASSI-A2 belong to different instruments and are charted with their edition, never trended against a current result. Because the Spanish SASSI is a separate adult instrument rather than a translation, and the Institute recommends against using its scale scores to form clinical hypotheses, chart a Spanish administration by its classification alone. Pitfall: A note reading SASSI administered with no edition, or a SASSI-3 interpretation copied from an old handout and applied to a SASSI-4 result.
Time frame and referral context. State the time frame the respondent was instructed to use for the face-valid section (lifetime, the past 12 months, the past six months, or since a specified date), because the publisher lets the evaluator choose it and the meaning of acknowledged or unacknowledged use changes with it. Record the referral source and question (court order, probation condition, child-welfare plan, EAP referral, treatment admission), the case number if the report will be filed, the date, and the fact that the respondent was told the result would be shared with the referring party. Pitfall: A classification reported with no time frame, so a court cannot tell whether the respondent denied any lifetime use or only use since the arrest.
Reading level, comprehension, and accommodations. The publisher states a fourth- to fifth-grade reading demand for the adult form and about fourth grade for the adolescent form. Chart how you confirmed the respondent could read the questionnaire, whether the publisher's audio administration was used, whether the respondent asked what an item meant and how that was handled without rephrasing it, and any interpreter, vision, or fatigue issue. The copyright notice forbids paraphrasing or translating the questions, so an improvised explanation or translation is a nonstandard administration and is charted as one. Pitfall: A literacy problem or an item translated on the spot scored as a valid profile, or a helpful paraphrase of an item written into the note.
Validity statement, in words. Report the publisher's validity check by name (the Random Answering Pattern indicator on the adult form, the Validity Check on the adolescent form), whether items were skipped or double-marked and how that was resolved, and your conclusion: the profile was interpretable for screening, interpretable with caution, or not interpretable and not used. Describe response style qualitatively: the Defensiveness scale indexes reluctance to endorse personal faults, and the publisher's guidance treats an elevated result as a reason to suspect a missed case, not as evidence of lying. Keep the numbers, the thresholds, and the profile sheet in the testing file. Pitfall: Valid profile with nothing behind it, T scores and cutoffs copied into the note, or defensiveness written up as deception.
Result category, in the publisher's words. Write the classification exactly as the key or platform reports it, High Probability of a substance use disorder or Low Probability of a substance use disorder, with the edition and date, and follow it in the same sentence with its published limits: a screening classification, not a diagnosis; a low result does not rule out a disorder, especially with a defensive profile; a high result does not establish current use, intoxication, impairment, or relapse, and a person in long recovery may still screen high. Never restate the category as positive for addiction, passed, or failed. Pitfall: SASSI positive: alcohol dependence, or SASSI negative, no substance problem, either of which converts a probability screen into a finding it cannot support.
Profile description, as hypotheses. Below the classification, describe what the scale pattern suggests in plain language and label it a hypothesis: limited acknowledgment of alcohol or other-drug consequences on the face-valid scales, a symptom or attribute pattern resembling that of people with a diagnosed disorder, a prescription drug scale flag that warrants specific follow-up, or, on the SASSI-A3, family and peer risk or attitudes toward use. The Correctional and Family scales describe resemblance to reference groups and support no inference about criminality or a family diagnosis. The Institute's own training guidance says the further an interpretation moves from the scores toward personality or behavioral conclusions, and the less collateral information exists, the more it must be treated as a hypothesis to investigate. Pitfall: The platform narrative pasted in as the formulation, or a single scale turned into a personality label, a prediction of offending, or a family diagnosis.
Integration, conclusion, recommendation, and records. Name the evidence the conclusion actually rests on: the clinical interview with DSM-5 criteria reviewed, the substance use history, arrest, driving, and treatment records, collateral informants, toxicology or breath results, and any other instruments (the AUDIT-C or DAST-10 for a transparent comparison). State the diagnostic conclusion, or the absence of one, as reached independently of the screen, and write the recommendation (level of care under the ASAM Criteria, education, monitoring, or no treatment) so that it does not rest on the classification alone. Close with record handling: where the completed questionnaire, profile, and platform report are stored as test data, what goes into the report that leaves the office, the release or 42 CFR Part 2 consent on file, and any re-administration plan, remembering that the Institute recommends against routine repeats. Pitfall: A recommendation that cites only the classification, or a court report with the questionnaire and profile sheet stapled to it.
SASSI DOCUMENTATION BLOCK Date: [ ] Setting: [ ] Clinician: [ ] Referral: [court / probation / child welfare / EAP or DOT SAP / treatment admission / other; case no.] Instrument: [Adult SASSI-4 / Adolescent SASSI-A3 / Spanish SASSI] Language: [ ] Administration: [paper, publisher's key / SASSI Online / audio] Proctored by: [ ] Time frame given for the face-valid items: [lifetime / past 12 months / past 6 months / since (date)] Reading and comprehension: [reading level confirmed how; audio used; questions asked and handled without rephrasing; interpreter; fatigue; none] Validity review: [items complete; random or inconsistent responding not flagged / flagged; response style described in words; profile interpretable / with caution / not interpretable, reason] Result category (publisher's words): [High Probability / Low Probability of a substance use disorder] Limits stated: [screen, not diagnosis; low does not rule out; high does not show current use or impairment] Profile hypotheses (no scores): [face-valid acknowledgment; symptom or attribute pattern; prescription drug flag; adolescent family, peer, or attitude risk; Spanish SASSI: classification only] Other instruments and toxicology: [AUDIT-C / DAST-10 / breath or urine result] Interview and collateral: [DSM-5 criteria reviewed; history; records; informants] Conclusion (independent of the screen): [diagnosis, or none, and its basis] Recommendation: [level of care; education; monitoring; not resting on the screen] Records and release: [questionnaire, profile, platform report stored as test data; contents of the outgoing report; release / Part 2 consent; repeat plan] Clinician signature / credentials: Date:
Free to use and share, no signup. The PDF includes a one-page cheat sheet with element-by-element pitfalls and a pre-sign checklist; the DOCX is the blank documentation block, ready to adapt. Neither reproduces items, scoring keys, decision rules, or profile layouts.
Scenario: a court-ordered DUI evaluation at a licensed outpatient addiction program, where an Adult SASSI-4 given through SASSI Online returns a low-probability classification with a guarded response style while the arrest record, interview, and collateral point the other way; the evaluator documents the edition, time frame, validity, and category in the publisher's terms, reaches the diagnosis independently, and handles the records for the court. All details are fictional.
Patient: M.L., 34 · Setting: Outpatient addiction program, court-ordered DUI evaluation · Clinician: T. Alvarez, LCSW, CADC · Note date: 09/17/2026
Instrument and administration: Adult SASSI-4, English, administered on 09/17/2026 through SASSI Online on a program tablet in a private office, proctored by this evaluator, as one component of a substance use evaluation ordered by the county court after a 09/05/2026 arrest for driving under the influence (case number on file). The face-valid section was completed for the past 12 months, the time frame this program uses for first-offense evaluations. M.L. was told before starting that the result would be reported to the court. He completed high school and reads for his work; he read the on-screen instructions aloud without difficulty, asked no questions about item meaning, and used no audio or interpreter accommodation. All items were answered in about 14 minutes. Scoring and the classification were produced by the publisher's platform; the platform report and profile are stored in the program's testing file, and no item content appears in this record.
Validity and response style: The platform's validity indicator did not flag random or inconsistent responding, and the profile was treated as interpretable for screening purposes. The response style was guarded: by the publisher's interpretive guidance the profile showed a defensive pattern, with little acknowledgment of alcohol-related consequences on the face-valid scales. Under the Institute's guidance that pattern raises the chance of a missed case and is not evidence of dishonesty; it is recorded here as a hypothesis weighed against the other information below, not as a finding about M.L.'s truthfulness.
Result category: SASSI-4 classification as reported by SASSI Online: Low Probability of a substance use disorder. This is a screening classification, not a diagnosis, and it does not establish the absence of an alcohol use disorder; the publisher states that the instrument cannot determine current drinking and that a defensive profile can produce a low result in a person who has a disorder. The classification was weighed as one input and was not treated as dispositive.
Interview, records, and collateral: Clinical interview of 55 minutes with DSM-5 alcohol use disorder criteria reviewed one by one. M.L. reported drinking on two or three evenings a week, usually four to five beers, and denied any consequence other than the arrest. The arrest report documents a breath alcohol concentration of 0.16 at 11:40 p.m. on a weeknight and a prior alcohol-related driving citation seven years earlier that M.L. did not mention until asked. With his written consent, his spouse described six or more beers on most Fridays and Saturdays over the past year, two arguments about his drinking, and one evening this summer when she drove him home from a friend's house because he could not. Program intake urine drug screen on 09/17/2026: negative on all panels; breath alcohol at intake 0.000. AUDIT-C completed on paper the same day for a transparent comparison: 7 of 12, positive under the program's convention for men. No prior treatment.
Conclusion, reached independently of the screen: Alcohol use disorder, moderate, per DSM-5, on the basis of the interview and collateral: criteria met for hazardous use (driving after drinking on at least two occasions in the past year), larger amounts than intended, unsuccessful attempts to cut down (two, by his account), continued use despite recurrent interpersonal conflict, and tolerance. The low-probability SASSI-4 classification is inconsistent with this evidence; the inconsistency is explained by the guarded response style and by the instrument's stated inability to measure current drinking, and the diagnosis rests on the interview, the arrest record, the collateral account, and the AUDIT-C, not on the SASSI. M.L. was told the classification, what it does and does not mean, and the basis for the diagnosis; he disagrees with the diagnosis and his objection is recorded.
Recommendation, records, and plan: Recommended to the court: enrollment in this program's outpatient level of care (ASAM Criteria Level 1) with the state DUI education series, weekly individual sessions, and monitored abstinence, based on the diagnosis, the six-dimension review, and M.L.'s stated willingness to attend; the recommendation does not rest on the SASSI classification. The court report will state the edition, administration mode, time frame, validity statement, classification, and limits exactly as written above and will attach no questionnaire, profile sheet, or platform report; those remain in the testing file as test data and will be released only under a signed release or a court order, in line with the program's test-security policy. Consent for disclosure to the court under 42 CFR Part 2 signed 09/17/2026, naming the court and the probation department as recipients. No repeat SASSI is planned, consistent with the Institute's guidance against routine re-administration; progress will be tracked with the AUDIT-C at monthly reviews, breath tests, and collateral check-ins. Report to the court due 09/30/2026; first treatment session 09/24/2026.
This sample is fictional and for educational purposes. It does not describe a real patient or record; the dates, results, and details are invented to show documentation structure and are not clinical guidance. No SASSI items, scale scores, cutoffs, decision rules, or profile materials are reproduced.
Writing these after every session? BastionGPT drafts complete notes from bullets, dictation, or a transcript.
Generate a note from bulletsUnited States: mandated evaluation almost never means a mandated SASSI. Under LAW, impaired-driving statutes and administrative codes require screening and assessment and prescribe who does it and how it is reported, not the brand: New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law 1198-a orders screening with a standardized written instrument developed by the state addiction services office and a formal assessment by a qualified professional, and names no instrument; the federal Substance Abuse Professional rule at 49 CFR 40.293 requires a face-to-face clinical evaluation, professional judgment, and an individualized recommendation after a DOT violation, and names no test. Where the SASSI is required, the requirement lives in a local program, contract, or court plan: a Utah county's 2024 to 2026 substance use disorder plan, for example, directs DUI-referred clients to complete the SASSI and a biopsychosocial assessment before treatment and refers those with a high-probability result for a complete substance use assessment (CONVENTION, local). Drug-court, probation, child-welfare, and custody practice standards call for validated screening and corroboration and leave the instrument to the evaluator, and the ASAM Criteria (fourth edition, 2023) place people by a six-dimension assessment in which a screen is at most a trigger (CONVENTION). Two publisher policies bind users by contract rather than by law: the Institute's terms of use bar using the questionnaires as a screening tool for job applicants, so a post-violation SAP evaluation or an EAP referral is a different act from pre-employment testing, and its qualification form and training statements decide who may buy and interpret the instrument. Under PAYER POLICY no code names the SASSI: a brief standardized instrument is usually reported under 96127 or inside the psychological testing family (96130, 96131, and 96136 to 96139) according to what was done and by whom, and the SBIRT codes (99408, 99409, G2011, G0396, G0397, and the state Medicaid codes H0049 and H0050) require a structured assessment and a brief intervention with time; the CMS SBIRT fact sheet (May 2025) names the AUDIT and the DAST as example tools and does not mention the SASSI, so bill SASSI as SBIRT is not a safe rule. When the evaluation is court-facing, the APA forensic guidelines and Ethics Code Standards 9.04 and 9.11 govern what leaves the office: the respondent's answers, scores, and your interpretation are test data, releasable with consent or legal compulsion, while the questionnaire, key, and profile layout are test materials that stay out of the filing; a record created by a federally assisted program is also a 42 CFR Part 2 record whose disclosure to a court needs the specific consent or order the Part 2 consent page describes.
The edition and the evaluator's qualifications are foreseeable cross-examination targets, so date them. As of September 2026 the current editions are the Adult SASSI-4 (2016) and the Adolescent SASSI-A3 (2020); the SASSI-3 and SASSI-A2 they replaced still circulate in old handouts and study notes, and an interpretation drawn from them has no standing for a current result. The Institute requires a qualification form before a first purchase, accepts licensed or credentialed psychologists, physicians, psychiatric nurses, addiction counselors, counselors and therapists, social workers, and rehabilitation counselors, and lets staff without professional training administer and score under appropriate supervision; Pearson lists the family at qualification level B. Institute training is publisher policy, not law: the Institute states that training is not mandatory for practitioners whose credential or professional preparation includes assessment, offers Session I (administration and scoring) and Session II (clinical interpretation), and says of Session II that it is not required but highly recommended for anyone giving feedback to clients or writing reports (CONVENTION); a report author who has taken it should say so, and one who has not should expect the question. The same training guidance warns that the greater the inference and the thinner the collateral, the more any relationship between a score pattern and a clinical syndrome is a hypothesis to investigate, which is the sentence to keep in mind when a probation officer asks whether the SASSI showed lying. The evidence base argues for the same restraint: the publisher's SASSI-4 validation (Lazowski and Geary, 2016) reports 93 percent sensitivity and about 90 percent specificity against clinician DSM-5 diagnoses in 1,245 participants, with 79 percent sensitivity for the full scoring protocol against 47 percent for the face-valid scales alone when 120 adults in recovery were told to fake good; Feldstein and Miller's 36-study review found the indirect scales' internal consistency weak and no evidence for their claimed advantage; a court-mandated offender study (Hartigan and colleagues, 2021) found the SASSI-4 vulnerable to positive impression management, with the Defensiveness scale unable to separate partial denial of substance use from a generally favorable self-presentation; and a DSM-5 reanalysis of the retired SASSI-3 (Laux and colleagues, 2016) found 75 percent sensitivity, 77 percent specificity, and only fair agreement with counselor diagnoses. Canada and Australia change nothing about the note and everything about the expectation: the SASSI is sold and used in Canada, but provincial remedial driving programs such as British Columbia's Responsible Driver Program describe an assessment process and name no instrument, no provincial rule naming the SASSI was found in the research for this page, and Australian driver-fitness and public-health guidance points to the AUDIT and the ASSIST, so a SASSI outside the United States is charted as the evaluator's choice with its rationale.
SASSI, SASSI-4, and SASSI-A3 are trademarks of The SASSI Institute (Springville, Indiana), which holds the copyright in the questionnaires, items, scales, T scores, norms, profiles, score reports, and scoring keys and whose copyright notice bars reproducing, paraphrasing, or translating the questions, creating derivative products, or copying the materials into computer storage without written permission, so a clinic may chart an authorized result but may not rebuild the questionnaire or its scoring in an EHR, a form, or a public web tool without a license from the Institute. Distributors such as Pearson sell the materials under the Institute's qualification rules. BastionGPT is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the publisher. This page reproduces no test items, stimuli, norms, or scoring materials.
The numbers behind these errors are specific. The publisher's SASSI-4 validation (Lazowski and Geary, 2016) reports 92 percent overall accuracy against clinician DSM-5 diagnoses in 1,245 participants (sensitivity 93 percent, specificity 89 percent), 95 percent in criminal justice settings and 91 percent in DWI and DOT programs, and, in a fake-good study of 120 adults in recovery told to minimize, 79 percent sensitivity for the full protocol against 47 percent for the face-valid scales alone; the SASSI-A3 validation reports 89 percent overall accuracy (sensitivity 90 percent, specificity 85 percent) in 1,065 adolescents from 19 programs (The SASSI Institute, 2020). Against that, Feldstein and Miller (2007) reviewed 36 peer-reviewed reports with a combined N of 22,110 and concluded that sensitivity was similar to public-domain instruments, that the specificity findings pointed to a high false-positive rate, and that no empirical evidence supported the claimed unique advantage of the subtle scales; Laux and colleagues (2016) found the SASSI-3 at 75 percent sensitivity and 77 percent specificity against DSM-5 diagnoses in 241 participants, with a kappa of .42; and Hartigan and colleagues (2021) found the SASSI-4 vulnerable to positive impression management in court-mandated offenders. No published audit counts how often the edition, time frame, or validity statement is missing from SASSI entries; the local program rules, records-request law, and publisher terms described under compliance considerations are what turn those omissions into a problem. The BastionGPT Clinical Advisory Board sees the same errors most often in SASSI documentation reviews:
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It is a screening classification produced by the publisher's decision rules from the combination of face-valid scales (what the respondent acknowledged about alcohol and other-drug use over the time frame the evaluator chose) and subtle or indirect scales (true-false items whose relationship to substance use is not obvious), after a validity check. High Probability means the response pattern resembles that of people who were diagnosed with a substance use disorder in the validation studies and that a diagnostic assessment is warranted; the publisher's SASSI-4 validation reports 92 percent overall accuracy against clinician DSM-5 diagnoses, which is an estimate from that sample, not the chance that a particular respondent has a disorder. Low Probability means the pattern resembles those without a diagnosis, and it does not rule a disorder out, especially when the profile is defensive. Neither result establishes current use, intoxication, impairment, or relapse: the Institute states that the instrument cannot determine whether a client is currently drinking and that someone in long recovery will more than likely still screen high. Document the category in those exact words with the edition, the time frame, the validity statement, and the limits, and let the diagnosis come from the interview and collateral.
No. The publisher describes the result as a screening outcome that does not yield a clinical diagnosis and is one piece of information in a diagnostic evaluation, and its own validation used clinicians' independent DSM-5 diagnoses as the criterion the screen was tested against. A substance use disorder diagnosis comes from a criteria-based interview with history, collateral, records, and toxicology, documented in a substance use assessment; placement comes from the ASAM Criteria's six dimensions; a fitness or return-to-duty opinion comes from functional evidence and the governing policy. When a referral source asks for the SASSI result alone, provide the category with its limits in the same sentence and the independent conclusion beside it, and say in the report that the recommendation does not rest on the classification. The independent literature is the reason for that restraint: sensitivity similar to public-domain screens and a high false-positive rate in the 2007 review, only fair agreement with counselor diagnoses for the SASSI-3 under DSM-5, and vulnerability to positive impression management in court-mandated offenders.
Usually not by name, and the label matters in the report. LAW requires the evaluation, the evaluator's credential, and the report format: New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law 1198-a orders screening with a standardized instrument developed by the state addiction services office and a formal assessment by a professional, naming no brand; 49 CFR 40.293 requires the DOT Substance Abuse Professional to conduct a face-to-face clinical evaluation and use professional judgment, naming no test; state administrative codes for DUI evaluation prescribe uniform reports and risk classifications. Where the SASSI is required, the source is a county plan, a court contract, or a program protocol (a Utah county's 2024 to 2026 plan requires it with a biopsychosocial assessment before DUI treatment), which is CONVENTION or local rule, so write required by this program or court rather than required by state law unless the statute says so. Child-welfare and custody practice calls for validated, corroborated screening and names nothing, and the Institute's qualification form lists child protective services as a user setting. On billing, PAYER POLICY names no SASSI code either: report what was done under 96127 or the testing family, and use the SBIRT codes only when a structured assessment and a timed brief intervention were delivered, noting that the CMS SBIRT fact sheet names the AUDIT and the DAST as examples and not the SASSI.
It cannot, and the note should never say it did. The Defensiveness scale indexes reluctance to endorse personal faults or limitations; the publisher reads an elevated result as a reason to suspect a missed case and a possible reason to re-administer once rapport improves, not as proof of deception, and a court-mandated offender study found the scale unable to separate partial denial of substance use from a generally favorable self-presentation (Hartigan and colleagues, 2021). The publisher's own fake-good study cuts both ways: with 120 adults in recovery told to minimize, the full scoring protocol kept 79 percent sensitivity against 47 percent for the face-valid scales alone, which supports using the whole instrument and does not make any scale a lie detector. When a low result conflicts with the arrest record, collateral, or toxicology, write the category, describe the response style in words as a hypothesis, list the conflicting evidence, reach the conclusion the evidence supports, and explain the inconsistency; the phrase beat the test belongs nowhere in a record that a defense attorney, a judge, or a licensing board may read.
As of September 2026 the current adult edition is the SASSI-4 (2016; ages 18 and up; fourth- to fifth-grade reading level; about 15 minutes to administer and score; paper, SASSI Online, Scantron, and audio formats) and the current adolescent edition is the SASSI-A3 (2020; ages 13 to 18; about fourth-grade reading level; paper and SASSI Online). Both were validated against DSM-5 substance use disorder diagnoses and both carry a prescription drug scale; the SASSI-A3 also has adolescent scales for friends and family risk, attitudes, a validity check, and a secondary classification. The adult Spanish SASSI is a separate instrument validated in its own sample (publisher-reported accuracy 84 percent), not a translation of the SASSI-4, and the Institute recommends against using its scale scores to develop clinical hypotheses, so a Spanish administration is charted by its classification. The SASSI-3 and the SASSI-A2 (2001) are retired; their manuals, their cutoffs, and the study notes built on them do not apply to a current result, and the Institute has announced no SASSI-5 or SASSI-A4. State the edition and the date of administration in every entry.
The Institute requires a completed qualification form before a first purchase and accepts licensed or credentialed psychologists, physicians, psychiatric nurses, addiction counselors, counselors and therapists, social workers, rehabilitation counselors, and doctoral researchers; Pearson lists the family at qualification level B. Staff without professional training may administer and score under appropriate supervision, and interpretation, feedback, and report writing belong to the qualified clinician. Training is publisher policy, not law: the Institute states that training is not mandatory for practitioners whose credential or professional preparation includes assessment, offers Session I on administration and scoring and Session II on clinical interpretation (3.5 continuing-education hours each), and says Session II is not required but highly recommended for anyone giving feedback or writing reports. It also runs a free clinical helpline for customers on administration, scoring, and interpretation, by telephone only. In a court-facing report, state your license, your supervision arrangement if a technician administered the questionnaire, and your SASSI training, because opposing counsel will ask.
Separate the layers. The chart entry carries the edition, mode, time frame, reading conditions, validity statement, the category in the publisher's words with its limits, a qualitative profile description labeled as hypothesis, and the independent conclusion and recommendation. The completed questionnaire, the scored profile or platform report with its scale graph, and the narrative are stored in the testing file: under APA Ethics Code Standards 9.04 and 9.11 the respondent's answers, scores, and your interpretation are test data, releasable to the client or under a proper release or court order, while the questionnaire, scoring key, and profile layout are the publisher's test materials, protected by copyright and test-security obligations, and are not attached to a court report, sent to an employer, or placed in a portal. A DUI, probation, or custody report therefore restates the category and the basis for the conclusion in prose and attaches nothing from the publisher. When the program is federally assisted, the entry is also a 42 CFR Part 2 record, so disclosure to a court or probation office needs the specific consent or order described on the Part 2 consent page, and the Institute's terms of use require users to follow Part 2 and HIPAA. The records request and subpoena response pages cover the mechanics.
The CAGE, AUDIT-C, and DAST-10 are short, transparent screens that are free for clinical use with attribution and have published scoring that anyone can read; the SASSI is a longer proprietary inventory whose items, scoring, and decision rules are copyrighted and whose selling point is the indirect scales meant to flag a disorder when the respondent minimizes. That difference decides the use. In primary care, emergency, and SBIRT workflows the public tools are expected and CMS names the AUDIT and the DAST as examples; in a court-ordered, probation, child-welfare, or EAP evaluation, where minimizing is likely, the SASSI is a common choice, the publisher's fake-good study is the argument for it, and the independent literature (sensitivity similar to public-domain instruments, a high false-positive rate, and vulnerability to impression management in offenders) is the argument for pairing it with a transparent screen, collateral, records, and toxicology rather than relying on it. Whichever you use, the note names the instrument, its time frame, and its convention, and the diagnosis comes from a substance use assessment, never from a screen.
Yes. Give it the facts (edition, language, platform or paper, proctor, time frame, reading conditions, the validity review and response style in words, the category as reported, the interview findings with DSM-5 criteria, records, collateral, toxicology, other screens, and the recommendation) and it drafts the documentation block or the report paragraph: edition and time frame named, validity stated, the category in the publisher's words with its limits, the profile as hypotheses, and the conclusion and recommendation tied to the evidence, ready for your review. It can also check a finished evaluation for a category with no edition or time frame, a low result read as exculpatory, defensiveness written as deception, a recommendation resting on the screen alone, or scale scores and platform text that belong in the testing file. BastionGPT is HIPAA-compliant with a signed BAA on every plan, and your data is never used to train models.
The instrument facts and compliance claims on this page trace to these sources, last verified September 2026:
Educational content, not legal or billing advice. Sample notes are fictional. Follow your organization's policies and your board, payer, and jurisdiction requirements.