WASHINGTON, DC – December 29, 2022 – On December 29th, President Joe Biden signed an end-of-year government appropriations bill that includes the bipartisan Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act. The FDA-approved medicine for opioid use disorder (OUD), called buprenorphine, will become easier for people to obtain who seek treatment. One of the main medicines used to treat OUD is Suboxone. It is the brand name combination medicine that includes buprenorphine with naloxone, the latter is used to reverse opioid overdoses. Buprenorphine has been shown to be effective in reducing overdose deaths, curb the use of illegal drugs, and help people from dropping out of treatment. MAT has been proven to be the most effective treatment for OUD.
The MAT Act eliminates the following barriers to care:
- Health-care provider prescribing. Any DEA-registered prescriber of controlled substances will be able to treat OUD patients with buprenorphine. Providers will no longer require additional training and certification to obtain a special DEA waiver to prescribe this medicine. Therefore, more providers will be able to prescribe it. Patients won’t have to search for a physician who can prescribe buprenorphine and travel long distances to get treatment. Taking time off from work and spending money on gas are major factors in reducing patients access to care.
- Disparities by geography and race. Underserved communities of color and rural populations have difficulty with access to buprenorphine. Having more health care providers able to prescribe the medicine should reduce these disparities.
- Stigma in treating OUD. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is encouraging providers to treat patients with OUD by eliminating barriers to prescribing the controlled medicine.
More than 100 thousand Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021 and 75% were due to opioids. Over the past 20 years, more than one million Americans died from drug overdoses. However, in 2020 only 11% of people with this condition received medicine-assisted treatment. Therefore, federal legislators from both political parties are optimistic that the newly signed MAT Act will be a great step towards reducing the treatment gap. Health-care providers will be able to take care of patients with OUD (a disease of the brain) just as they take care of heart disease, diabetes and lung disease.
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Contact: Dick Needleman, Health reporter, 103.3 AshevilleFM, [email protected]
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