Medication for Opioid Use Disorder

Access to health insurance is crucial to gaining the necessary diagnostic and therapeutic services to achieve and maintain good health. Insurance is especially necessary to access medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) as the cost of MOUD can be a barrier to staying in treatment. If insurance coverage is disrupted, MOUD treatment may be more […]

Since 2021, over 100,000 individuals have died each year from a drug overdose, with approximately 76 percent of those deaths involving opioids.  As the US health care system contends with this growing health crisis, improved access to evidence-based medication treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) is imperative. Pharmacoeconomics, a branch of health economics used to evaluate comparative clinical, person-centered, and economic outcomes […]

LDI Senior and Associate Fellows Ashish Thakrar, Margaret (Maggie) Lowenstein, Ryan Greysen, and M. Kit Delgado found that more people with opioid use disorder are leaving the hospital prematurely (or before medically advised), compared to marginal increases for individuals admitted for other reasons. In the study, “Trends in Before Medically Advised Discharges for Patients with Opioid Use Disorder, 2016-2020,” […]

The opioid epidemic has been an ongoing public health crisis in the United States, claiming countless lives and devastating communities. Buprenorphine, a highly effective medication for the treatment of opioid use disorders, holds the potential to save lives. However, a significant hurdle exists in the form of prior authorization requirements, which are associated with lower access to […]

As $54 billion in National Opioid Settlement funds begin moving out toward states, counties, and municipalities, there is widespread concern among health authorities that the legal victory does not become a repeat of the 1998 mega-billion-dollar Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement fiasco in which most states used the money for just about everything except tobacco cessation […]

The two main medications that treat opioid use in the United States reduce overdose deaths by 50%. Yet fewer than one in 10 people with opioid use disorder (OUD) can access this kind of medical protocol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Fortunately, a new law and a new federal regulation […]

Despite evidence that medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), namely methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, provided at the point of incarceration improve the well-being of the individual and the public, financial and administrative limitations in jail/prison healthcare often serve as barriers to this recommended first-line treatment for OUD. In fact, evidence indicates that more than 80% […]

For the last 20 years or so, the U.S. has seen a significant increase in opioid and drug overdoses overall. And while there was a slight leveling before the pandemic, “we’ve seen huge increases since COVID-19,” said Margaret Lowenstein, an LDI Senior Fellow, addiction medicine physician, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of […]

Compared to the general population, individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) who are involved with the criminal-legal system have a much higher risk of a fatal overdose after release from incarceration. Yet, stigma, costs, and preferences for non-narcotic treatments in criminal-legal settings have stalled the implementation of life-saving treatment within the criminal-legal system. Extended-release naltrexone […]

Increased prevalence of illicit substance use during pregnancy in the past decade has renewed national attention to prenatal substance use policies (PSUPs). Currently, there are punitive policies that criminalize drug use during pregnancy or define prenatal substance use as child maltreatment in child welfare statutes. If newborns are found to have prenatal exposure to substances […]

Overdose deaths continue to be a national tragedy. More than 800,000 Americans died from an overdose between 1999-2019, and the annual rate of overdoses has increased dramatically during the pandemic, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 7 in 10 current overdose deaths involve opioids, which means that […]

From April 2020 through April 2021, there were 100,300 drug overdose deaths across the country according to the CDC — a 28.5% increase over the previous year. Some 75% of these were opioid-related overdoses that killed an average of nine users an hour around the clock throughout the year. Looking forward, the just-published Stanford-Lancet Commission on […]