News & Blog
January 29, 2020
The Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 (DATA 2000) permits qualified physicians to obtain a waiver to treat patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) with buprenorphine in office-based practices. In 2016, 47% of all US counties and 72% of rural counties lacked a buprenorphine waivered physician. That year, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act extended […]
Early analysis of Pennsylvania’s program Two patients are treated for opioid overdose at two different hospitals, just a few miles apart. The first hospital provides life-saving treatment to reverse the overdose and watches the patient for an hour, discharging them when deemed “medically stable.” The second hospital also provides life-saving treatment but then offers counseling, […]
The incidence of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), also known as neonatal withdrawal syndrome, increased nationally from 3.4 per 1000 hospital births in 2009 to 5.8 in 2012. Recent estimates of NAS cost $1.5 billion dollars with the majority of the financial burden falling to state Medicaid programs. However, pregnancy offers a unique opportunity for women […]
November 25, 2019
In August 2019 the United States Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) proposed a revision to the Federal rule that protects patient confidentiality for people with substance use disorders, referred to as 42 CFR Part 2. The sixty day comment period has ended and comments are currently under consideration. This proposal seeks to […]
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) released a draft recommendation for hepatitis C (HCV) antibody and RNA screening in all adults ages 18 to 79. This is a departure from their current 2013 recommendation of risk-based screening, including people who inject drugs (PWID), and one-time screening in baby boomers born between 1945 and 1965. The recommendation […]
September 11, 2019
More than 100 policymakers, practitioners, and researchers discussed and debated how payment policy can promote evidence-based, cost-effective substance use disorder treatment, in a recent workshop hosted by the Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use Disorder, HCV and HIV (CHERISH) and the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at the University of […]