The article, “National Trends in Buprenorphine Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder From 2007 to 2018,” has been published in SAj in Volume 44 Issue 1-2.
In this commentary, the authors state that Buprenorphine is a key medication to treat opioid use disorder (OUD). Since its approval in 2002, buprenorphine access has grown markedly, spurred by major federal and state policy changes. This study characterizes buprenorphine treatment episodes during 2007 to 2018 with respect to payer, provider specialty, and patient demographics.
In the AUTHORS’ OWN WORDS, they relate the importance of their work:
“Overall, our findings demonstrate that the U.S. experienced clear growth in buprenorphine treatment, with a doubling of treatment episodes occurring from 2007-2009 to 2016-2018 as well as increases in treatment episode duration. Yet, this growth in buprenorphine utilization should be viewed in context of an evolving opioid epidemic. Given that the prevalence of OUD and fatal overdose rate have also approximately doubled during this period,12,13 the observed growth in buprenorphine treatment did not demonstrably impact the pronounced treatment gap. This has also been observed in previous studies among Medicaid beneficiaries14 and in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)15 that concluded that growth in buprenorphine waivered clinicians and prescribing did not notably increase the overall proportion of OUD patients who received buprenorphine.”