“Policymakers and insurers have been pushing people addicted to opioids into abstinence-based detox programs, but a new study concludes that methadone and similar drug-maintenance treatments save lives and money, Reuters reports.
If the nearly 47,000 Californians who began treatment for opioid-use disorder in 2014 had received immediate access to methadone or another opioid-agonist treatment—instead of first being forced to completely withdraw from opioids—the health care and criminal-justice systems would have saved $3.8 billion, researchers estimate. In addition, 1,262 lives would have been spared, lead researcher Emanuel Krebs, a health economist at the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, British Columbia, told Reuters.”
Read more at: https://www.managedcaremag.com/news/study-substituting-methadone-opioids-could-save-billions
Source: ManagedCareMag.com – November 21, 2017
