Article Excerpt: During the COVID-19 pandemic, health agencies used emergency authorities to allow opioid treatment programs to provide care via telehealth and to remotely prescribe medications for opioid use disorder. Knowing whether patients benefited from these changes could affect whether they will remain in place. But studies addressing this question have thus far been limited in scope. A team of NIH and other federal researchers examined telehealth use, treatment engagement, and overdoses under the emergency authorities… The researchers looked at how well the people receiving medications continued their treatment. They found that those who received telehealth service were more likely to keep getting their medications. Importantly, those receiving telehealth service also had a lower risk of overdose.
Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/5ba9p3f8
Article Source: NIH News