Opinion: The misguided reason why providers aren’t prescribing more buprenorphine for opioid use disorder
Providers shouldn’t be afraid of buprenorphine for opioid use disorder making it into the hands of someone without a prescription.
In December 2022, Congress repealed the “X-waiver” requirement, which had limited medical providers’ ability to prescribe buprenorphine-naloxone, one of the three medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of opioid use disorder. Lawmakers knew that the waiver was a major barrier to providing lifesaving medication that halves the risk of overdose to the millions of Americans needing treatment for opioid use disorder.
Yet, even with the waiver nixed and increasing recognition of the importance of access to treatment, the number of providers prescribing buprenorphine has not grown significantly. One analysis using emergency department data found that the percentage of encounters with patients with opioid use disorder that resulted in a buprenorphine prescription increased from 2% in 2019 to 8% in 2023. While this increase is encouraging, it is not the scale-up in treatment many hoped for.This raises a simple question: Why?
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