The opioids legislation isn’t the only public health-related bill now stalled in Congress. Senate Democrats last week blocked a bill that would provide $1.1 billion for the Zika virus because of concerns over what they called “poison pill” provisions, and members remain at a stalemate over what will come next for the legislation.
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The White House on Wednesday will announce a set of administrative regulations aimed at addressing the opioid crisis, as a funding fight in Congress threatens to derail bipartisan bills from both chambers.
Doctors who are now allowed to prescribe the drug buprenorphine to up to 100 patients will be allowed to prescribe that medication to up to 275 people if they obtain a waiver, officials said.
The new rule aims to increase access to medication and behavioral therapy for tens of thousands of people with opioid use disorders, while preventing it from landing in the hands of people who shouldn’t get it.
Until Tuesday, buprenorphine was restricted, with physicians able to treat only 100 patients for a year or more.
Michael Botticelli, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that lawmakers had long recognized that “without additional funding and without treatment funding, we’re not going to make a dent in this issue”.
“We have to turn the tide of this epidemic”, said Burwell, who made the announcement during a press call Tuesday.
House and Senate conferees are expected to meet Wednesday on the conference report for the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which would improve treatment for addiction and overdoses and reform prescribe practices. The treatments are controversial, however, in part because the drugs are themselves opioids. That’s nearly triple the current limit of 100, and HHS estimated that as many 70,000 more people may have access to the drug as a result. Many of those who commented on the proposed rule warned about the risk of buprenorphine being diverted for illegal uses, she added. Buprenorphine is a medication to treat opioid use disorder, similar to methadone. Opioids are controlled substances that are typically used to treat pain.
Buprenorphine ranks as the most common form of medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction in the United States, according to federal officials. The move doesn’t require Congressional approval; however, Obama’s plan to add $1.1 billion to anti-opioid programs does.
Officials announced the new caps alongside several other executive actions to combat opioid addiction.
In the spring, HHS originally proposed to double the number of patients the doctor could treat, which Dr. Darrell Arnett, a Nashville-based pain management and addiction specialist, called at the time “a huge bulletin of hope”.
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“If this were pancreatic cancer or diabetes, this whole thing would be laughable”, says Kennedy, who has battled addiction and mental illness.
