On May 14, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) issued a settlement agreement which found that Charlwell House,  a skilled nursing facility, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by refusing to accept a patient for treatment because the patient was being treated with Suboxone for opioid use disorder (OUD).

At ASAM’s 2018 Annual Conference, Elizabeth Westfall, an attorney from the Disability Rights Section in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, presented on “Opioid Use Disorders and the Americans with Disabilities Act: Eliminating Discriminatory Barriers to Treatment and Recovery.” Westfall discussed the Civil Rights Division’s response to the opioid epidemic; gave an ADA overview; explained the ADA’s application to and protections for people with substance use disorders and opioid use disorders; and detailed how to file a complaint about disability discrimination with the Department. To access the presentation, click here.

The Legal Action Center (LAC) has additional information about what to do when forced off medication assisted treatment (MAT) by the criminal justice and child welfare systems or employers available in the LAC’s MAT Advocacy toolkit, found here.