DEA allows buprenorphine inductions based on telephone only

Abstract

Last week, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said opioid treatment programs (OTPs) and Drug Addiction Treatment Act (DATA)–waived prescribers can treat new patients with buprenorphine based on a telephone call only. The Controlled Substances Act (CSA), enforced by the DEA, requires all new patients being treated with controlled substances to have an in‐person — or, for now, telemedicine — physical exam. Now, however, because of the coexisting COVID‐19 pandemic and opioid overdose crisis, the DEA has dropped this requirement. This follows the decision of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to allow exemptions from the OTP take‐home regulations allowing stable patients to be given 14 or 28 days of methadone doses, instead of coming in more frequently (see DEA, SAMHSA relax OTP/OBOT regulations due to COVID‐19, ADAW March 23, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.32664 ).