In Rural Areas, Buprenorphine Waiver Adoption Since 2017 Driven By Nurse Practitioners And Physician Assistants.

ABSTRACT: Few patients with opioid use disorder receive medication for addiction treatment. In 2017 the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act enabled nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) to obtain federal waivers allowing them to prescribe buprenorphine, a key medication for opioid use disorder. The waiver expansion was intended to increase patients' access to opioid use treatment, which was particularly important for rural areas with few physicians. However, little is known about the adoption of these waivers by NPs or PAs in rural areas. Using federal data, we examined waiver adoption in rural areas and its association with scope-of-practice regulations, which set the extent to which NPs or PAs can prescribe medication. From 2016 to 2019 the number of waivered clinicians per

SUBMITTER: Barnett ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6938159 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature