Pre-pandemic, patients sometimes traveled several hours for addiction care, said Emily Behar, director of clinical operations for Ophelia, a New York startup serving people with opioid addictions. Or patients might be struggling with multiple jobs or a lack of child care. Such obstacles made sustaining care fraught.

“How do you reach those people?” she asked.

It’s a question preoccupying much of the behavioral health sector, complicated by the reality that most patients with opioid use disorder aren’t in treatment, said Dr. Neeraj Gandotra, chief medical officer of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Keep reading here. 

Peer support specialists are themselves in recovery and are employed to help others. As billions of dollars in opioid settlement funds roll out to states and localities, local leaders are deciding what to do with the money. Supporting and training peer specialists, whose certification requirements vary by state, are among the options.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “mounting evidence” shows that working with a peer specialist can result in better recovery outcomes, from greater housing stability to reduced rates of relapse and hospitalization. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office identified peer support services as a promising practice in treating adults with substance use disorders. In many states, peer specialists are reimbursed through Medicaid.

Keep reading here. 

As the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs in the United States, the nation is facing a worsening substance use crisis that has led to a rise in overdose deaths. Using a special set of health care billing codes reserved for screenings and short interventions, practicing psychologists can help patients who use alcohol or other substances before a severe outcome occurs.

In the first year of the pandemic, more than 1 in 10 adults reported starting or increasing their use of alcohol or drugs to cope with the pandemic. In addition, deaths caused by drug overdose have spiked during this public health emergency, primarily driven by opioid use. More Americans died from overdoses in 2020 than in any previous year, and recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show overdose deaths rose again during the first half of 2021.

Keep reading here. 

Lawmakers in California are debating whether to open sites where people can inject or snort illegal drugs under the watchful gaze of a health care worker. These facilities are an effort to save lives as overdoses skyrocket across the country.

"Instead of having people use drugs on the sidewalk when your kid is walking by, we want to give them a place where they can go inside," said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, the sponsor of a bill to pilot facilities in Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Keep reading here.