Opioids

Mental health and substance use treatment advocates are calling on Congress to reauthorize funding for mental health clinics, remove barriers to medication-assisted treatment and allow mental health counselors to bill Medicare.

Plans say prior authorization for medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for individuals with substance use disorders helps the treatment be used safely and effectively, but providers are worried that prior authorization is a barrier to treatment in the middle of an opioid crisis.

FDA denied a petition from Public Citizen that called for a moratorium on new opioid approvals until the agency’s regulation and review of opioids are revamped.

Though FDA and stakeholders have taken steps to promote federally recommended methods to dispose of unused opioids, little is known about whether such efforts to educate the public are effective for increasing use of disposal methods, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a Tuesday (Sept. 3) report on opioid disposal.

Substance use disorder and mental health advocates are concerned that loosening the strict privacy scheme that protects substance use treatment records will make it easier for these records to get in the hands of law enforcement and could make people fearful of seeking treatment.

Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg unveiled a proposal Friday (Aug. 23) to tackle mental illness and substance use disorders by increasing Medicaid reimbursement for related services, requiring Medicare and Medicaid to cover medication-assisted treatment, and tackling social isolation and social determinants of health through Medicare and Medicaid interventions.

HHS’s long-awaited proposal to relax a strict privacy scheme protecting substance use records has renewed calls from both Senate and House lawmakers, including Energy & Commerce Republicans, to pass a bill going further than the proposed rule to fully align the scheme with the less-stringent Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The number of Medicaid-covered prescriptions for buprenorphine, a key drug used to treat opioid addiction, increased dramatically in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act while remaining relatively static in non-expansion states, according to a new study from researchers at the Urban Institute.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy issued advisories that explain how pharmaceutical and chemical supply companies can identify illicit fentanyl manufacturing and redistribution and prevent movement of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids into and within the United States.