Opinion: The DEA needs to officially allow telehealth prescribing for opioid use disorder
The statistics are dismal, though they bear repeating: 81% of overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2021 involved an opioid.
But as an addiction medicine specialist, there are figures that give me hope: one seminal study showed that 75% of patients who were given the FDA-approved medication buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder daily for 12 months remained in recovery — compared with 0% who did not receive buprenorphine treatment for the entire 12 months. That’s right: 0%.
