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One Big Roadblock to Opioid Addiction Treatment

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MONDAY, Jan. 6, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The crisis of opioid abuse continues in the United States. However, a new study finds there still aren’t enough doctors authorized to prescribe the leading drug treatment for opioid addiction.

This shortfall occurs even though the number of physicians approved for the drug, called buprenorphine, has risen dramatically over the past decade, researchers say.

Right now, fewer than 1 in every 10 doctors have received the U.S. federal waiver required to prescribe buprenorphine. The drug is more effective and easier to access than the other leading treatment, methadone, noted study author Ryan McBain, a policy researcher at the RAND Corp.

Still, the number of authorized buprenorphine prescribers increased fourfold between 2007 and 2017, up to more than 56,000, McBain said.

“It’s a huge increase, and it’s exciting to see that,” McBain said. “On the other hand, there are over 600,000 primary care providers in the United States, which means that more than 90% of providers still are not waivered to provide treatment. That’s the downside.”

Meanwhile, the number of opioid overdose deaths increased from about 16,500 in 2007 to about 46,000 in 2017, McBain said.

“The size of the problem is also increasing dramatically over the same period,” McBain said. “We’re trying to play catch-up with the scope and the scale of the epidemic.”

Doctors have to apply for a waiver from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to be able to prescribe buprenorphine, a requirement that’s been in effect since 2002, according to the agency.

Buprenorphine has increasingly become the preferred method of treating opioid use disorder in the United States, McBain said.

“It connects with people’s opioid receptors in their brains, but it doesn’t have the same effect as a full agonist like if you were using heroin or you were at a methadone clinic,” McBain said.

Buprenorphine also has a “ceiling effect,” he added.

“You can take more and more buprenorphine, but the effect of it levels off even if you take more of a dosage,” McBain said. “That’s not true of other things, like methadone.”





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