In Case You Haven't Heard…

Abstract

So, a [National Institute on Drug Abuse] NIDA‐funded study has found that telehealth buprenorphine initiations result in marginally longer retention rates than non‐telehealth (see page 5). The low retention rate overall — less than half of the patients in Kentucky and less than one third in Ohio — will be discussed in future issues, as will possible indications for who will do better in telehealth, and possible confounders in that study. The differences — 48% vs. 44%, and 32% vs. 28% — are not that large. The support by the federal government for telehealth is echoed by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and almost all physicians, who support it for prescribing of all controlled substances. Somehow, the idea of physicians prescribing controlled substances without ever examining the patient — something that some 40,000 commenters, plus all the major medical associations, to a proposed rule by the Drug Enforcement Administration have said that they want (see https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33912) — seems odd as the nation is still reeling from overdose deaths caused, many believe, by the overprescribing of opioids more than 10 years ago. Entire opioid settlement funds, now being scooped up by anyone who can get them, are based on that premise.