A new report from the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center concludes that many individuals with opioid use disorder are not receiving proper medical treatment for dependency.
The report, published Thursday in JAMA Internal Medicine, said only 22% of the 40,000 individuals with the disorder who were studied in 2021 used the dependency drug buprenorphine for a full year.
Out-of-pocket costs were cited as a reason for the low use of drugs such as buprenorphine.
Researchers said that if medications such as buprenorphine were added to a federally approved list of drugs recognized to help with preventive services, it would likely help with the cost barrier, as private insurers would be mandated to offer coverage.
Opioid dependency drugs were also the subject of a July report by Enlyte LLC highlighting medication-assisted treatment in workers compensation claims.
That report showed that prescriptions for medications used to treat opioid dependency and overdose in comp rose 11.6% in 2022.