The Opioid Crisis: Treating Addiction and Saving Lives

An estimated 2.1 million Americans have an opioid use disorder, according to the latest national data. Opioid overdose takes the lives of 4.6 Americans every hour. With a crisis of this magnitude, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that effective, life-saving treatments are out there. Medication-assisted therapy and the opioid-reversing drug naloxone, for example, are two highly effective interventions for addiction and overdose, but access barriers persist.

In part two of our opioid webinar series, we explored ways to expand the use of evidence-based treatment, including:

• Strategies to smooth access to key drug therapies through standing orders to dispense and removal of prior authorization requirements
• Federal and private-sector initiatives to protect the patients from sub-standard or fraudulent addiction treatment
• A multi-sector collaboration to adopt principles of care for substance abuse treatment and to help practitioners stay abreast of the evidence
• Ideas for using pharmacy data to identify potential abuse and for deploying telehealth technology to improve access to treatment