Study: More Opioid Addiction Patients Stay in Treatment When Offered Buprenorphine via Telemedicine

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Apr 12, 2023, 10:00 ET

Spanning nearly 1,400 New York and Pennsylvania patients, 18-month study finds 56.4% stayed in treatment for six months; 48.3% stayed for one year
Retention outcomes were equivalent irrespective of race or geography, and higher than previously studied in-person treatment, showing long-term telehealth potential in reducing opioid use mortality
With U.S. mired in opioid crisis, evidence-based, medication-assisted telehealth treatment options eliminate or reduce care access barriers like transportation, stigma, competing responsibilities and related costs

NEW YORK and PHILADELPHIA, April 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Opioid addiction care provider Ophelia today announced the publication of a study of 180-day retention and 365-day retention across a sample of opioid use disorder patients receiving buprenorphine through a telehealth treatment platform in New York and Pennsylvania.

Conducted between April 2021 and September 2022, the study revealed that telehealth patient retention rates are higher than a previously studied multi-state in-person patient population (using the same visit-based retention definition). Despite hypothesizing that retention would be lower among racial / ethnic minorities and rural patients, the study found that there were no significant associations between sex, race/ethnicity, state, or rurality with treatment retention. The groundbreaking results point to the long-term promise of telehealth-based medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). It also may be incredibly impactful for patients that traditionally had difficulties accessing care.

Published in late March 2023 in The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, the study spanned 1,378 patients. 58.1% of patients resided in Pennsylvania, and 41.9% resided in New York, with a 21.2% to 78.8 % rural to urban split, respectively. 58.8% of patients were male, and the mean age of the patient population was 35.6 years. The 180-day treatment retention rate among the overall sample was 56.4%. Among a subset studied for 365 days, the treatment retention rate was 48.3%.

"Living in a healthcare desert, lacking financial resources or grappling with stigma should not be barriers to getting life-saving treatment for opioid use disorder," said Dr. Arthur Robin Williams, Chief Medical Officer, Ophelia. "These study findings, published by a widely respected addictive disorder journal, are another step forward in proving what we already know: telehealth-based medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder is highly effective in reducing overdoses and preventing relapse."

Evidence-based, medication-assisted treatment is highly effective, reducing overdoses by 76%, reducing ER visits by 32%, reducing cravings, decreasing withdrawal symptoms and reducing total cost of care by $10,000 per patient per year. Time and again, medication-assisted treatment for OUD has proven to have better outcomes than any other treatment approach, positioning it as the gold standard of care for those grappling with opioid use.

Despite the availability of effective and lifesaving medications such as buprenorphine, the majority of individuals with OUD in the US go without treatment. Barriers like transportation, stigma, confidentiality concern, costs, competing responsibilities, and behavioral health workforce shortages severely hamper care access.

"Medication-assisted treatment for OUD works. The time is now to mainstream telehealth-based, medication-assisted treatment options, getting more life-saving medicine into more hands, and saving more lives," said Zack Gray, co-founder and CEO, Ophelia.

Study authors flagged that further research is needed to determine best practices and identify critical interventions for those in OUD treatment with buprenorphine across demographics. Authors also stated that it will be necessary to determine how telehealth interventions would best serve diverse populations of all ages, especially those where fatal overdose rates are rising the fastest.

About Ophelia
Ophelia is a digital provider of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder (OUD), committed to making evidence-based treatment universally accessible. Its mission is to remove barriers for the 80% of Americans with OUD who are unable to access care and the 50,000+ MAT-licensed clinicians who are unable to treat patients due to a lack of infrastructure, training, and support. At its core is the Ophelia Care Model, a team-based clinical model and software platform developed by leading experts in addiction medicine and psychiatry. Ophelia is licensed to provide care in 36 states and contracted with Medicaid, Medicare, and Commercial insurers covering 85 million American lives.

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SOURCE Ophelia