Addiction Treatment Forum reports on substance use news of interest to opioid treatment programs and patients in medication-assisted treatment.
How an Online Interview Can Help Programs Monitor Patient Progress, Identify Problems
Patients in treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) may have other conditions that need treatment, and ignoring them can lead to relapse. An online assessment system devised by Norman G. Hoffmann, Ph.D., who is a leading expert in devising questionnaires to help programs assess patients, explained to AT Forum as we attended the Cape Cod…
Helping SUD Providers Help Diverse Patients: Race, Incarceration, Pain, PTSD
Race: In “Can You See Us? Providing Culturally Competent Treatment for Persons of Color,” presenters at CCSAD (Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders) in September, criticized the phrase “I don’t see color.” That’s not the right way to look at diversity in therapeutic settings, they said, because only by “seeing” color can providers make sure…
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STUDY: Do Health Care Costs and Service Usage Increase When Prisoners Are Treated for OUD, Then Released?
With the risk of fatal overdose at least ten times higher in released prisoners than in the general population, there’s a clear need for treating opioid use disorder (OUD) during incarceration. Most of the more than 2 million Americans with OUD have contact at some point with the criminal justice system, so incarceration provides a…
AT Forum Newsletter – Recent Articles
The Need for Medications and Psychotherapy in Treatment
“I said I will never work for anyone who just makes you throw pills at the wall and see what sticks,” said Hans Watson, DO, who is chief medical officer of Recovery Ways, a treatment program in Murray, Utah. Speaking at the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders (CCSAD) Sept. 10, Dr. Watson is trained…
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Details on How to Use Methadone Vehicles: Two OTPs’ Experience
Two treatment providers with many years’ experience using mobile methadone outlined their lessons learned and more in an August 11 webinar hosted by the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD). The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) okayed methadone dispensing from vans – which are actually more like RVs – provided that the vehicles…
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Kloxxado: Nasal Spray Naloxone Launched
Kloxxado, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in April for treatment of opioid overdose (see https://atforum.com/2021/06/naloxone-nasal-spray/), is now officially on the market. And the timing is good; this naloxone 8-mg nasal spray, launched August 4 by manufacturer Hikma Pharmaceuticals, comes at a time when naloxone is in short supply. It is approved for both…
STUDY: “Is MAT Cost Effective?” Answer: A Resounding “Yes!”
We’ve long known that opioid use disorder (OUD) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, and that far too many people lack access to the effective therapy that medication-assisted treatment (MAT) can provide. Now an important new study published July 2021 in JAMA Psychiatry tells us much more about MAT, describing its cost-saving benefits…
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SAMHSA Issues New and Revised TIP 63 on Medications to Treat OUD
Last week, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued a new Treatment Improvement Protocol 63 (TIP 63) on treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD). Certain parts of the TIP 63 were revised to include updates in the following areas: statistics from SAMHSA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health…
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