The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is on one of the most effective treatments for opioid addiction.
That medication is buprenorphine, and the change makes it so healthcare professionals don鈥檛 have to get extra training to offer the medication to as many as 30 patients with opioid addiction.
Addiction specialists hailed the move, including Dr. Donald E. Nease, Jr. with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. He thinks this is a great step toward acceptance of medications that help in addiction treatment.
鈥淩eminds me a lot of early in my career,鈥� Nease said, 鈥渨hen the same thing happened with the routine treatment and primary care of depression.鈥�
The Mountain West hasn鈥檛 seen the worst of the opioid crisis, but use in the region and overdose deaths have risen nationwide during the pandemic.
And there are plenty of other challenges within doctors' offices to overcome, like more frequent reimbursement.
鈥淚 think making this available to folks whether they鈥檙e on public assistance insurance or private insurance, that鈥檚 really important,鈥� said Dr. Nease.
Another hurdle is physicians themselves.
鈥淭his change in (HHS) guidance is a great step, but unfortunately doesn鈥檛 guarantee that all these prescribers are automatically going to start prescribing buprenorphine,鈥� said Elizabeth Stone, a PhD student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
A Stone conducted showed that stigma against addiction affects whether doctors will prescribe medication for it.
鈥淟ess than 30% of (primary care physicians) reported that they were willing to have a person taking medication for (opioid use disorder) as a neighbor or marry into their family,鈥� the survey found.
That stigma led to 11% less likelihood that a physician would prescribe medications for someone with opioid use disorder.
Another showed that only 38% of physicians wanted the federal government to remove a waiver system that would allow them to prescribe buprenorphine without extra hurdles.
Even pharmacies play a role. A shows that one in five U.S. pharmacies block access to buprenorphine.
Dr. Yngvild Olsen is an addiction medicine specialist who works with the American Society of Addiction Medicine. She believes one of the biggest hurdles addiction treatment faces is continued stigma around the disease. That includes how addiction medications have been regulated.
鈥淗aving a separate registration, having a separate training requirement that鈥檚 focused on this one particular medication, that has unfortunately continued to perpetuate some of that stigma,鈥� she said.
Olsen hopes that this HHS change is just the first of many, including getting rid of more barriers to treatment and encouraging more education about addiction treatment in medical schools.
For some researchers, like Dr. Like Linda Zittleman, there鈥檚 a hope for community education, too. Zittleman works with the High Plains Research Network and program.
鈥�...we found that when patients, community members, and practice care teams learned about what鈥檚 called the cycle of addiction 鈥� what actually happens in the brain when someone has a use disorder 鈥� many of their assumptions and views on treatment shifted,鈥� she wrote.
鈥淲hen addicted to opioids, a person gets to a point of using not to get high but to avoid withdrawal, avoid feeling awful. When people understand that, their perspective on opioid use disorder and its treatment can shift.鈥�
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