By Lev Facher | July 21, 2023
Significant challenges remain before most American clinicians feel comfortable treating patients with buprenorphine, according to a new study.
While the federal government’s recent moves to deregulate buprenorphine have led to a bump in new prescribers, it didn’t lead to a significant bump in overall prescribing volume. Many health care providers still see prescribing buprenorphine as difficult, or simply have little interest in using the medication, according to the study.
The research, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum, underscores two major challenges: allowing U.S. health care providers to provide addiction medications, and then convincing them to actually use the medications to treat patients.
“The number of people getting the modified waiver was going up, but the number of people getting buprenorphine prescriptions really wasn’t changing,” said Chris Jones, the study’s lead author and a longtime federal addiction policy official currently serving as director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s injury prevention division. “This survey allowed us to dig into: All right, so you’ve taken the step to get the modified waiver. What are the other challenges that you’re finding with why you’re not prescribing?”