The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) Releases Report with Recommendations to Improve Federal Opioid Spending

Amid the ongoing opioid public health emergency, questions abound over the best way to spend federal funds to improve patient outcomes in addiction care. In addition to mandatory spending, such as in Medicaid, Congress’ discretionary opioid-related spending has totaled over $6 billion per year, fiscal year 2018 to 2020, and COVID-19 relief funds added an additional $2.5 billion towards targeting substance use disorders. In this context, the Bipartisan Policy Center convened an Opioid Crisis Task Force and released a report with recommendations for Congress and the Biden Administration to optimize spending and improve opioid-related population health outcomes in the areas of mandatory and discretionary spending, data reporting and metrics, and governance and leadership. The report reinforces the need for enforcement of parity laws in mental health and substance use disorders treatment, underscores the importance of the ASAM Levels of Care in health policy, and highlights ASAM billing and coding work that aims to strengthen fair reimbursement policies for addiction specialist physicians.