Out-of-Pocket Costs May Serve as Barrier to Buprenorphine, Studies Suggest

Treating people with opioid use disorder (OUD) with buprenorphine is known to reduce opioid use, drug overdoses, and hospital visits, but the medication is underused. Two reports published yesterday —one appearing inJAMA Internal Medicine and another inJAMA Pediatrics—suggest that out-of-pocket costs for buprenorphine may be partly to blame for keeping the drug out of reach for adults and youth with OUD who have private health insurance.As described inJAMA Internal Medicine, Ashley A. Leech, Ph.D., M.S., of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and colleagues used the MarketScan Commercial Claims Database to track patients aged 18 to 64 years who initiated buprenorphine between April 1, 2013, and December 31, 2020. They wanted to understand the association between out-of-pocket costs for patients ’ initial buprenorphine prescription (index fill) and buprenorphine discontinuation within one year.Between 2013 and 2020, 40,035 commercially insured patients (median age, 34 years) began taking buprenorphine for OUD. “Only 22% of patients continuously used buprenorphine during the follow-up period, and 6% switched to naltrexone,” Leech and colleagues reported. They found that the higher the daily out-of-pocket costs for the patients, the higher the risk of medication discontinuation.“Policies addressing patient-level hurdles within the OUD cascade of care may prevent lasting impact on adverse health outcomes associated with OUD,” Leech and colleagues wrote.In theJA...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: adults buprenorphine CDC JAMA Internal Medicine JAMA Pediatrics Medicaid opioid use disorder OUD out-of-pocket costs private insurance youth Source Type: research