{"id":7371,"date":"2016-07-06T13:09:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T13:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2016\/07\/06\/obama-administration-eases-restrictions-on-doctors-who-treat-opioid-addiction\/"},"modified":"2016-07-06T13:09:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T13:09:00","slug":"obama-administration-eases-restrictions-on-doctors-who-treat-opioid-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/obama-administration-eases-restrictions-on-doctors-who-treat-opioid-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Administration Eases Restrictions On Doctors Who Treat Opioid Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Kodjak<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"As<\/a><\/div>\n
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As many as 70,000 more people could get access to office-based treatment for opioid use now that the administration has raised the cap on the number of patients each doctor is allowed to treat. Jamie Grill\/Getty Images<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/strong> Jamie Grill\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Obama administration is making it easier for people addicted to opioids to get treatment.<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell<\/a> announced new rules<\/a> Wednesday to loosen restrictions on doctors who treat people addicted to heroin and opioid painkillers with the medication buprenorphine.<\/p>\n

Doctors who are licensed to prescribe the drug, which is sold mostly under the brand name Suboxone,<\/a> will be allowed to treat as many as 275 patients a year. That’s almost triple the current limit of 100, and HHS estimated that as many as 70,000 more people may have access to the drug as a result.<\/p>\n

“There are a number of ways we are trying to increase access to medication-assisted treatment,” said Michael Botticelli<\/a>, the director of national drug control policy, on a conference call with reporters. “This rule itself expands access and gets more physicians to reach more patients.”<\/p>\n

Suboxone is itself an opioid. It eases withdrawal symptoms and cravings, but doesn’t make people high.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Congress passed legislation<\/a> that allows doctors who are trained and pass a test to offer office-based buprenorphine treatment. However, the same law capped how many patients a doctor can treat. These are the only medications that are under such restrictions.<\/p>\n

In a related move, HHS said it is changing how it uses patient satisfaction surveys<\/a> to determine Medicare payments. Burwell said some doctors and hospitals said they felt pressure to prescribe opioid painkillers because the surveys could affect their income.<\/p>\n

“This rule eliminates the connection between pain management questions in the survey and payments to doctors and to hospitals,” she said on the conference call.<\/p>\n

Even as they announced the new rules, administration officials urged Congress to allocate more money to help pay for more addiction treatment programs.
\nHouse and Senate negotiators are considering a series of opioid treatment bills<\/a>, but those proposals don’t include all the funding President Obama requested.<\/p>\n

Botticelli said many Democrats in the House have said they won’t sign off on a compromise bill unless it includes the $1.1 billion that the president requested.<\/p>\n

Botticelli said an average 129 people a day die from opioid overdoses.<\/p>\n

Let’s block ads!<\/a><\/strong> (Why?)<\/a><\/p>\n

Source:: http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2016\/07\/06\/484843560\/obama-administration-eases-restrictions-on-doctors-who-treat-opioid-addiction?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=healthcare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"As<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

As many as 70,000 more people could get access to office-based treatment for opioid use now that the administration has raised the cap on the number of patients each doctor is allowed to treat. Jamie Grill\/Getty Images<\/strong> hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

toggle caption<\/strong> Jamie Grill\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The Obama administration is making it easier for people addicted to opioids to get treatment.<\/p>\n

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell<\/a> announced new rules<\/a> Wednesday to loosen restrictions on doctors who treat people addicted to heroin and opioid painkillers with the medication buprenorphine.<\/p>\n

Doctors who are licensed to prescribe the drug, which is sold mostly under the brand name Suboxone,<\/a> will be allowed to treat as many as 275 patients a year. That’s almost triple the current limit of 100, and HHS estimated that as many as 70,000 more people may have access to the drug as a result.<\/p>\n

“There are a number of ways we are trying to increase access to medication-assisted treatment,” said Michael Botticelli<\/a>, the director of national drug control policy, on a conference call with reporters. “This rule itself expands access and gets more physicians to reach more patients.”<\/p>\n

Suboxone is itself an opioid. It eases withdrawal symptoms and cravings, but doesn’t make people high.<\/p>\n

In 2000, Congress passed legislation<\/a> that allows doctors who are trained and pass a test to offer office-based buprenorphine treatment. However, the same law capped how many patients a doctor can treat. These are the only medications that are under such restrictions.<\/p>\n

In a related move, HHS said it is changing how it uses patient satisfaction surveys<\/a> to determine Medicare payments. Burwell said some doctors and hospitals said they felt pressure to prescribe opioid painkillers because the surveys could affect their income.<\/p>\n

“This rule eliminates the connection between pain management questions in the survey and payments to doctors and to hospitals,” she said on the conference call.<\/p>\n

Even as they announced the new rules, administration officials urged Congress to allocate more money to help pay for more addiction treatment programs.
\nHouse and Senate negotiators are considering a series of opioid treatment bills<\/a>, but those proposals don’t include all the funding President Obama requested.<\/p>\n

Botticelli said many Democrats in the House have said they won’t sign off on a compromise bill unless it includes the $1.1 billion that the president requested.<\/p>\n

Botticelli said an average 129 people a day die from opioid overdoses.<\/p>\n

Let’s block ads!<\/a><\/strong> (Why?)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}