Psychiatric News (8/3) reports, “The number of individuals prescribed buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic increased steadily after the federal government instituted policies that allowed for greater use of telehealth,” investigators concluded after using “data from the Veterans Health Administration…to compare trends in buprenorphine treatment before and after the COVID-19 policy changes were implemented in March 2020.” The study team “compared the number of patients receiving buprenorphine from March 2019 to February 2020 (before policy changes) with those receiving buprenorphine from March 2020 to February 2021 (after policy changes).” The findings were published online July 28 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.
Related Links:
— “Rapid Shift to Telehealth During Pandemic Helped Patients With OUD Access Buprenorphine, Psychiatric News, August 3, 2022