Addiction Treatment Forum reports on substance use news of interest to opioid treatment programs and patients in medication-assisted treatment.
STUDY: Saving Lives by Launching Buprenorphine Treatment in the ED: What Clinicians Need to Know
It’s a scene that’s repeated countless times every day across the U.S. Siren blaring, an ambulance jolts to a stop at the entrance to a hospital emergency department (ED). Two paramedics jump out, open the back door, retrieve a young man strapped on a gurney, and wheel the gurney into the ED. A doctor hurries…
Extended Methadone Take-homes During COVID: Nothing But Success
Since March, when the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) relaxed rules for methadone take-homes to decrease exposure to the coronavirus, opioid treatment programs (OTPs) have been exercising this unprecedented freedom. Specifically, SAMHSA said March 16 that all states with declared states of emergency may request blanket exemption (from SAMHSA) for all stable…
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COVID-19 Resources
https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/medication_assisted/telemedicine-dea-guidance.pdf https://www.samhsa.gov/medication-assisted-treatment/statutes-regulations-guidelines/covid-19-guidance-otp https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/otp-guidance-20200316.pdf https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/sample-otp-covid-19-faqs.pdf https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2020/03/covid-19-potential-implications-individuals-substance-use-disorders https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/tips-social-distancing-quarantine-isolation-031620.pdf https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/032520%20Title-By-Title%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf
AT Forum Newsletter – June 2020
STUDY: Is ACA Medicaid Expansion Fueling the Opioid Epidemic, or Is It Saving Lives?
This is such an important question to resolve! Especially now, with more than a dozen states yet to decide on Medicaid expansion, while studies—some pro, some con, fail to provide an answer. So many factors are in play, and the statistical analysis involved is intensive. Background The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) became…
Mallinckrodt Expands Sanitizer Donations to All OTPs During COVID-19 Pandemic
The first comment many opioid treatment programs (OTPs) had about Mallinckrodt’s new policy of donating hand sanitizers is: “You don’t even have to be a customer.” This is indeed a generous move by the Staines-Upon-Thames-based company that makes much of the methadone, buprenorphine, and other medications used by OTPs. Last week, the company announced that…
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News & Updates – July 2020
A Guide For Companies That Want To Fight The Stigma Around Opioid Addiction
While the entire globe has been focused on battling COVID-19, our nation’s ongoing opioid crisis has not disappeared. In fact, it may be worsening. Early data from the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, a federally funded national surveillance tool, shows that…
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How To Reignite The Fight Against The Nation’s Opioid Epidemic
In an op-ed published in Morning Consult, AMA Immediate Past President Patrice A. Harris, MD, MA, wrote that there remains an urgent need to remove health insurers’ barriers to evidence-based treatment for patients with pain and substance-use disorders, enforcing mental health and…
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With Over 1,000 Connecticut Deaths Last Year, Opioids Demand Even Greater Attention During Pandemic
For opioid drug users, the COVID-19 pandemic adds crisis on top of crisis. Physiologically, opioid users may be more vulnerable to health complications related to COVID-19 because of compromised respiratory and pulmonary health. Socially, since opioid addiction is a disease of…
Two Friends Survive Covid-19 To Return To The Front Lines Of America’s Other Health Crisis | Commentary
Here in Baltimore, Our City of Perpetual Recovery, Steve Dixon and Antoine Kittrell have been through a lot together. They are friends. They are survivors. They have now twice recovered from threats to their lives — first from addiction to…
