ASAM Lauds HHS Agencies' Support of Opioid Addiction Pharmacotherapies

In a New England Journal of Medicine article, published April 23, 2014, "Medication-Assisted Therapies - Tackling the Opioid Overdose Epidemic," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administrations (SAMHSA) show the impact FDA-approved medications have on treating the chronic brain disease of opioid addiction and on reducing the morbidity and death associated with prescription pain medicine misuse.

Furthermore, the agencies address some of the key barriers patients have in accessing these life-saving, stabilizing medications, including public and private payer utilization management policies that limit the dosage or duration of the prescription or that require a patient “fail first” at less intensive levels of care before authorizing the prescription.  These and other payer limitations, as well as a review of the clinical and cost-effectiveness of these pharmacotherapies, are explained in a .

Please read ASAM's press release for the full story.