Telehealth use for opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment increased during the COVID-19 pandemic due to regulatory changes and expanded reimbursement. Telehealth can facilitate the prescribing of buprenorphine, an underused medication for OUD (MOUD) prescribed by office-based clinicians. Telehealth-initiated buprenorphine for OUD has been shown to reduce opioid overdose, and the option to initiate via telehealth is supported by leading addiction medicine professional groups. Pandemic-era rules allowed tele-initiation of buprenorphine for new and established patients with OUD. No studies have comprehensively characterized prescribers’ patterns of telehealth vs in-person initiation of buprenorphine for OUD or examined whether these patterns differ by prescriber specialty or patient insurance.

Ge, Y., Eisenberg, M. D., McGinty, E. E., Yu, J., & Tormohlen, K. N. (2024). Examining the use of telehealth to initiate buprenorphine for opioid use disorder treatment. Health affairs scholar, 2(11), qxae137. https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxae137