Obama Administration Makes Big Announcement Addressing Heroin Epidemic

"We need to lift people out of opioid-use disorder through medication-assisted treatment."

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration announced a major policy shift Thursday in its efforts to combat the nation's opioid abuse epidemic. Speaking at a conference on opioid addiction in Northern Virginia, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said her agency would rewrite regulations to remove some of the obstacles that have prevented greater involvement from doctors in treating those addicted to heroin or prescription painkillers.

In 2002, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction. But federal regulations stipulated that doctors first must be certified to prescribe the medication. They are then limited by how many patients they can treat with the drug: In their first year of prescribing, doctors can only treat 30 patients at any one time. In subsequent years, federal regulations permit them to go up to 100 patients. Those slots can fill up quickly in hard-hit areas.

Treating a few patients over the cap can bring on federal scrutiny from the Drug Enforcement Administration or a state licensing board. Doctors can also be made to feel like outcasts, especially in communities where an abstinence-only approach to treatment still dominates. The U.S. treatment system is still largely controlled by a belief that an addict is only truly sober once they've rejected buprenorphine (which is sold under the brand name Suboxone) and other medication-assisted therapies.

"We need to lift people out of opioid-use disorder through medication-assisted treatment," Burwell said, an assertion that may seem straightforward but will reverberate throughout the treatment world.

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