WASHINGTON - Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., is introducing legislation that would allow some opioid users in treatment to continue receiving methadone prescriptions from pharmacies to take at home, easing restrictions that were approved during the pandemic.
Opioid Treatment Access Act takes aim at restrictions on methadone, a leading medication used to treat Opioid Use Disorder, which could return late next year when take-home flexibility is set to expire. Before the pandemic, patients had to make daily trips to clinics to receive a single dose of the addiction medication.
Norcross told NBC News that they had to treat them like any other injury or disease and give them the dignity of accessible treatment. Imagine being in recovery and trying to get a job and saying, 'Excuse me, each day I need to go pick up my methadone.' More than 100,000 deaths in America were reported in the 12 month period ending April 2021, compared to 78,000 reported in the previous year, according to provisional data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Of the deaths, 93 percent were related to opioid use.
Since 2015, the figure marked the first time that such deaths had eclipsed 100,000 a year.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. A companion bill will be introduced in the Senate. He was instrumental in pushing for expanded access to treatment during the Pandemic.
Markey told NBC News that Opioid abuse is a crisis that has been under the radar because of the Covid epidemic. It's never been more important to modernize how patients receive opioid treatment. The exception was issued to protect public health by reducing the risk of Covid 19 infections among patients and health care workers, SAMHSA said.
More than a year after it was granted, preliminary studies show that the increase in take-home methadone doses has enhanced engagement with treatment and patient satisfaction, while incidents of misuse have been relatively low.
When access to lifesaving medication is more available, overdose deaths go down, said Dr. Kaitlin Baston, division head of addiction medicine at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, N.J. This is a daily medication and skipping one day can be devastating for a patient. Critics say take-home flexibilities have made it easier for individuals to obtain methadone and incentivize opioid abuse.
The exemption will be extended for a year from November until late 2022, but the exemption will be extended in November, and the exemption will be extended for a year. SAMHSA will consider mechanisms to make the flexibility permanent. The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced a new overdose prevention strategy, according to SAMHSA.
The extension will only be effective upon the expiration of the Covid 19 public health emergency.
Norcross said his legislation would reduce the stigma surrounding methadone treatment and enforce greater data collection on methadone use to enable medical professionals to assess its effectiveness and allow patients to use telehealth services to track their treatment plan.