Medication Approaches for Patients With Opioid Use Disorders: Differences Between Primary Care Clinics and Specialty...

Efforts to increase access to highly effective medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) have largely focused on primary care. Ironically, many specialty addiction treatment programs have yet to adopt MOUD. To bring MOUD access to scale, researchers need to better understand medication practices across these 2 major portals of care for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD). In this study, our team examined baseline prescribing data from 62 primary care clinics and specialty addiction treatment programs (SATPs) participating in MOUD implementation endeavors across 2 states.

Our primary outcomes included MOUD prescribing practices, measured by the integrating medications for addiction treatment (IMAT), which includes 7 dimensions of guideline-adherent delivery of MOUD, and an additional subscale on low threshold care. We also measured reach of MOUD to patients and adoption as the number of current MOUD prescribers. Secondary outcomes included community characteristics surrounding each type of organization. Descriptive statistics and bivariate tests explored differences between primary and specialty care settings.

SATPs had lower MOUD capacity and implementation as compared with primary care clinics. Specialty settings also had lower organizational support for low threshold prescribing. SATPs were located in counties with higher overdose rates, higher unemployment, fewer MOUD prescribers, and with more opioid prescriptions per capita.

SATPs have lower MOUD implementation capacity than their primary care counterparts and are more likely to be in counties with greater OUD-related needs, economic distress, and fewer treatment resources. Selecting more precise implementation support strategies for SATPs that are late adopters of MOUD is a major need.