Treatment

Providers Clinical Support System (PCSS), a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration-funded grant initiative, announced the release of Practice-Based Guidelines: Buprenorphine in the Age of Fentanyl. The guide gives practitioners a blueprint on treating fentanyl use disorder based on available research combined with emerging clinical experience on the use of buprenorphine in the treatment of individuals using fentanyl and other highly potent synthetic opioids.

The University of Rochester Medicine Recovery Center of Excellence is offering free trainings to provide guidance on evidence-based strategies to work through resistance and encourage help-seeking behavior. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Treatment Seeking (CBT-TS) is an evidence-based technique to encourage help seeking among those in need.

Contingency management has empirical support but limited implementation. This report provides an overview of contingency management, barriers of implementation, and recommendation on how to overcome the challenges of implementation. Evidence-based treatment for people with stimulant use disorder is important as the U.S. has been experiencing an overdose crisis resulting in overdose deaths. 

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 removed the federal requirement for providers to have an X-waiver to prescribe medications for the treatment of OUD. The act amended the Controlled Substances Act. Depending on state law, practitioners who have a current DEA registration with Schedule III authority will be able to prescribe buprenorphine for OUD starting now.

The Department of Health and Human Services today issued a notice of public rulemaking to improve the exchange of patient records used in the treatment of substance use disorder. HHS proposes provisions to implement section 3221 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to ensure providers have more complete and timely information when treating patients with SUD, including updating patient consent requirements and aligning disclosure requirements with those under HIPAA regulations. AHA is among a host of organizations who have pushed for such changes, including one which would enable providers to get a patient’s consent just once to share substance use records for treatment and health care operations. HHS will accept comments for the next 60 days.

This webinar provided RCORP grantees with the tools to complete a disparities impact statement, to support efforts to address populations in rural communities that have historically suffered from poorer health outcomes and health inequities as a part of the prevention, treatment, and recovery of SUD/OUD.

Last week, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) made this declaration for Florida, South Carolina, and Puerto Rico after determining that the devastation of Hurricane Iain required urgent response from the federal government

On March 16, 2020, to facilitate access to methadone treatment from opioid treatment programs (OTPs) during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration allowed states to request blanket exceptions to provide up to 28 and 14 days of take-home methadone for stable and less stable patients, respectively; this signaled a shift in practice because most patients historically receive methadone daily from OTPs.

Researchers looked at survey responses from women of reproductive age across eight rural U.S. regions to determine the association between contraceptive use and SUD treatment, healthcare utilization, and substance use.

This paper illustrates survival models for analysis of trials of substance use treatment programs. It uses public release data from a study of extended-release naltrexone (XR-NTX), relative to buprenorphine-naloxone (BUP-NX).