HHS to change rules for opioid treatment drug

Donna Leinwand Leger

USA TODAY

ST. JOHNSBURY, VT - FEBRUARY 06: Drugs are prepared to shoot intravenously by a user addicted to heroin on February 6, 2014 in St. Johnsbury Vermont. Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin recently devoted his entire State of the State speech to the scourge of heroin. Heroin and other opiates have begun to devastate many communities in the Northeast and Midwest leading to a surge in fatal overdoses in a number of states. As prescription painkillers, such as the synthetic opiate OxyContin, become increasingly expensive and regulated, more and more Americans are turning to heroin to fight pain or to get high. Heroin, which has experienced a surge in production in places such as Afghanistan and parts of Central America, has a relatively inexpensive street price and provides a more powerful affect on the user. New York City police are currently investigating the death of the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who was found dead last Sunday with a needle in his arm. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The federal government will change the rules for prescribing the addiction drug buprenorphine in an effort to expand access to medication-assisted treatment for people addicted to heroin and prescription painkillers, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Thursday.

Burwell also announced $1.8 million in grants to 13 states for rural communities to pay for naloxone, a drug that reverses an opioid overdose, and training on how to administer it.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have called overdoses from prescription painkillers an "epidemic." In 2013, more than 16,200 people died from overdoses related to prescription opioid pain relievers. Heroin deaths have also climbed sharply, more than doubling between 2010 and 2013. A recent HHS report found that fewer than 1 million of the 2.5 million people who need treatment for opioid addictions receive it.

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“The opioid epidemic knows no boundaries; it touches lives in cities, rural counties and suburban neighborhoods across the country,” Burwell said in a speech Thursday. “Updating the current regulation around buprenorphine is an important step to increasing access to evidence-based treatment - helping more people get the treatment necessary for their recovery."

Under current rules, doctors who are certified to prescribe buprenorphine can treat up to 30 addiction patients at a time for the first year. After a year, the doctors can request authorization to prescribe to a maximum of 100 patients.

Addiction doctors praised the move.

"We've been a unique and terrible situation: having to ration a life-saving medicine," said Dr. Mark Publicker, a physician and past president of the Northern New England Society of Addiction Medicine. "Everyday, we've had to tell desperate patients and their families that we cannot help them. With a lifting of the cap thousands of opiate-addicted will get the chance to regain their lives."

Medications that treat addiction – buprenorphine, methadone and a third named naltrexone -- are a cornerstone of the Obama administration's plan to combat the opiate epidemic.

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