Exploring the Association of State Policies and the Trajectories of Buprenorphine Prescriber Patient Caseloads.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Increasing buprenorphine access is critical to facilitating effective opioid use disorder treatment. Buprenorphine prescriber numbers have increased substantially, but most clinicians who start prescribing buprenorphine stop within a year, and most active prescribers treat very few individuals. Little research has examined state policies' association with the evolution of buprenorphine prescribing clinicians' patient caseloads.

Methods

Our retrospective cohort study design derived from 2006 to 2018 national pharmacy claims identifying buprenorphine prescribers and the number of patients treated monthly. We defined persistent prescribers based on results from a k-clustering approach and were characterized by clinicians who did not quickly stop prescribing an

SUBMITTER: Griffin BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10680051 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature