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Impact of COVID-19 telehealth policy changes on buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder
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10 2022
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Source: Am J Psychiatry. 179(10):740-747
[PDF-444.99 KB]
Details:
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Alternative Title:Am J Psychiatry
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Personal Author:
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Description:Objective:
This study examined the impact of COVID-19 policies reducing barriers to telehealth-delivered buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD) on buprenorphine treatment across different modalities (phone, video, in-person).
Methods:
We conducted a national retrospective cohort study with interrupted time series analyses to examine the impact of policy changes in March 2020 on buprenorphine treatment for OUD in the Veterans Health Administration, during pre-COVID-19 (March 2019 to February 2020) and post-COVID-19 (March 2020 to February 2021) periods. We also examined trends in use of phone, video and in-person visits for buprenorphine treatment and compared patient demographics and buprenorphine retention across the pre- and post-COVID-19 periods.
Results:
The number of patients receiving buprenorphine increased from 13,415 in March 2019 to 15,339 in February 2021. By February 2021, phone visits were used by the most patients (50.2%, 4,456), followed by video (32.4%, 2,870) and in-person (17.4%, 1,544). During the pre-COVID-19 period, patients receiving buprenorphine increased by 103 patients per month (p<0.001). Post-COVID-19 policy changes, there was an immediate increase of 265 patients in the first month and the number continued to increase but by 47 patients each month (p<0.001). Patients receiving buprenorphine post-COVID-19 had similar demographic characteristics to those pre-COVID-19, but percent reaching 90-day retention on buprenorphine decreased from 49.6% to 47.7% (p<0.05) while days on buprenorphine increased from 203.8 to 208.7 (p<0.001).
Conclusions:
The number of patients receiving buprenorphine continued to increase after COVID-19 policy changes, but the delivery shifted to telehealth visits, suggesting reversal of COVID-19 policies must be carefully considered.
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Source:
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Pubmed ID:35899380
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Pubmed Central ID:PMC9529783
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Funding:
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Volume:179
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Issue:10
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