Medications for opioid use disorder (OUD), such as methadone, buprenorphine, and extended-release naltrexone, are life-saving, It has been demonstrated Cut opioid overdose by more than half. However, according to one study, 86.6% of OUD patients did not receive these drugs. study Posted on Thursday in International Journal of Drug Policy.
In this study, the researchers New York University Grossman School of Medicine analyzed two databases: a publicly available database that tracks OUD medication dispensing by licensed methadone clinics, and prescriptions for buprenorphine and extended-release naltrexone private database.Through their analysis, they found that even though the use of OUD drugs has more than doubled over the past 10 years, the use of these drugs is still too low to keep up with opioid overdose fatalities has been soaring Over the past decade — a trend largely driven by the rise of synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
When the researchers looked at the data one by one, they found that the use of OUD drugs varied widely. OUD drug treatment rates are lowest in South Dakota and highest in Vermont. But even in the states with the highest usage rates, at least half of the people who could benefit from OUD drugs still don’t receive them.
The study’s lead author, Noa Krawczyk, said in an interview that there are three key ways to address this problem.
One is to relax strict rules on methadone dispensing. According to Krawczyk, methadone is one of the most effective treatments for OUD, but the drug can only be dispensed from licensed opioid treatment programs (OTPs). She noted that about 80 percent of U.S. counties don’t even have an OTP.Providers and harm reduction advocates are left with little help when it comes to expanding methadone use because federal law Medications can only be dispensed through these procedures.
That’s not the case in other countries, Krawczyk noted. In the UK, for example, patients can receive a methadone prescription from a doctor and pick it up at a pharmacy, just as they would get any other chronic medication. Having a similar system in the U.S. would make life-saving drugs more widely available, Krawczyk said.
Another change the U.S. health care system should make to increase access to OUD medications is to remove the special exemption requirement for doctors to prescribe buprenorphine.In order to prescribe buprenorphine in this country, the provider needs to X exemptionCongress in 2000 made it mandatory for doctors to undergo a day of training before prescribing a drug.
Last year, a bipartisan group of six members of Congress introduced Mainstream Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act Eliminate X saves.The Act cites a NIH study It showed that opioid overdose deaths in France fell by 79% in four years after the country took similar steps to make buprenorphine prescriptions possible without exemptions. Passing the bill would not only clear bureaucratic hurdles, Krawczyk said, it would also remove “the feeling that buprenorphine is a very complex treatment, and it’s not really that way.”
The final change needed to increase access to OUD drugs is to expand the deployment of these drugs in mobile health clinics and community-based organizations, as well as in the criminal justice system. To achieve this, Krawczyk declared, the medical community will have to work to reduce the stigma surrounding OUD. She noted that many providers have a stigma against OUD patients because they have never been trained in medical school to understand the condition.
“If you work in any hospital or community clinic, you’re going to have patients with substance use disorders,” Krawczyk said. “So it’s really shameful that we haven’t spent more time training our doctors. Opioid use disorder is the only chronic disease treated in this way – no other chronic drugs require special licensing or have to be in these specific settings provided in.”
Photo: Sorbet, Getty Images
