2023-BayMark-Outcomes-Report ..read more

Pictured: Merry Limbu, LESC Divisional Director of Supportive Housing The Lower Eastside Service Center (LESC) operated for almost two decades by Valerie Walters is a home to a thriving opioid treatment center (OTP), with full-service comprehensive treatment for patients taking methadone, but it is so much more. This recent article in Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly details the many services this iconic program provides to New Yorkers. This 60-year-old program focuses on abstinence (which includes therapeutic use of medications) and recovery. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw ..read more

To learn more, Visit: https://programnotapill.com/what-is-mat/faqs ..read more

On October 12 the Coalition of Medication-Assisted Treatment Providers and Advocates (COMPA), a New York coalition of opioid treatment programs (OTPs) and medication assisted treatment (MAT) providers, released its budget and policy agenda for 2024. Among the priorities: investing in the workforce, preventing OTP closures due to OMIG audits, supporting overdose prevention sites, and increasing the focus on integrated treatment. Below is the full message. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 107,000 people died of drug overdoses in the United States d ..read more

We are pleased to see Stop Stigma Now exhibiting at the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders, held in Hyannis, Massachusetts. We stopped by to chat with Sy Demsky and Bob Lubran, who were hoping to get the attention of the normally abstinence-focused crowd at the annual conference. In fact, even Brixadi (buprenorphine) had a booth. The energy level and thirst for information was obvious. And the weather was beautiful. Stop Stigma Now is promoting medication assisted treatment with the goal of removing stigma. Sy and Bob and others (board member Dr. David Novick stopped by the booth too ..read more

A recent story in Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly focused on the reasons that more than 90% of opioid treatment programs use methadone, mainly liquid methadone, and how this formulation could not be practical in an office-based or pharmacy setting. For the story, go to https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33873 Excerpts: “For pharmacy dispensing, they would need a safe,” said Dustin Alvanas, chief operating officer of CODAC in Rhode Island. “The safe that is required for methadone is 10,000 pounds. The safe has to be closed and locked when not being used. And when the DEA walks ..read more

On August 31, coinciding with Overdose Awareness Week and the start of National Recovery Month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), announced that it is awarding $57.6 million in seven grant programs to connect Americans who misuse substances to recovery and treatment supports. “Overdose Awareness Week and National Recovery Month are moments to affirm our commitment to ensuring that all people facing behavioral health challenges are connected to effective, evidence-based and culturally responsive sup ..read more

By Alison Knopf As in the last time Mallinckrodt filed for bankruptcy in 2020, the Dublin-based pharmaceutical company will continue to serve opioid use disorder (OUD) provider customers, including opioid treatment programs (OTPs), AT Forum has learned. The second bankruptcy, a “restructuring” like the first, was filed August 25. “Earlier this morning, we announced that Mallinckrodt has entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) that requires a pre-packaged chapter 11 filing to enable us to significantly reduce debt, resolve obligations to the Opioid Trust and enhance our financ ..read more

Part II: What OTP Patients Say They Need on Re-Entry Part I of our two-part series appeared here in May. The source study (see citation at the end of this article) discusses events during the crucial first 24 hours when prisoners with opioid use disorder (OUD) leave jail or prison. Here, in Part II, we share participants’ recommendations for improving re-entry, based on their lived experience. Kim Hoffman, PHD Structural and Logistical Barriers Release from imprisonment should be a happy event, yet for the vulnerable it’s often a time of abandonment; for some, even danger. Departing prisoners ..read more

At the June 21 Coalition of Medication-Assisted Treatment Providers and Advocates (COMPA) symposium, opoid treatment providers (OTPs) from across New York learned how the state is facilitating easier access to methadone, much of which is due to flexibilities which originated in the COVID-19 pandemic. These flexibilities include more take-home medications, which Chinazo Cunningham, M.D., the state’s Commissioner of the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS), strongly endorses. This topic came up at last year’s COMPA symposium as well (see https://atforum.com/2022/07/methadone-reform ..read more