One of the most effective ways to fight the ongoing opioid epidemic is medication-assisted treatment, MAT, a strategy that combines withdrawal medications to reduce cravings with behavioral therapy and social support including peer-based counseling. Yet while MAT has been shown to cut the risk of fatal overdose by as much as 50 percent, only a fraction of the 2 million Americans estimated to have an opioid-use disorder receive such therapy—mainly because not enough doctors are authorized to use it.
In fact, 40 percent of U.S. counties still have no clinicians permitted to prescribe one of the drugs, buprenorphine, which requires a doctor to take an eight-hour training course. Only one in 10 of the nation’s physicians have done so, even though around 68,000 Americans die every year from drug overdose, the majority opioid-related. To close the treatment gap—especially in rural areas of the country—some advocates propose requiring all medical residents to receive training in treating addiction, in order to integrate treatment into clinical practice.
In addition, they suggest easing the rules for nurse practitioners and physician assistants to prescribe withdrawal medications (they can currently do so but only with a physician’s supervision). All of these proposals warrant close study as we continue to address a national opioid crisis that has killed more than 400,000 over the past two decades.