New buprenorphine prescriptions far below expected levels during first year of pandemic
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Despite a constant number of active buprenorphine prescriptions, the number of new prescriptions during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly below expected levels, according to a press release from Rand Corp.
In the study, Bradley D. Stein, PhD, MD, MPH, Rand senior physician policy researcher and director of the Opioid Policy, Tools and Information Center, and colleagues examined prescription records from U.S. retail pharmacies and found that new buprenorphine prescriptions between March 2020 and December 2020 were more than 17% below expected levels.
“While policy efforts may have been successful in maintaining existing patients in treatment, that success did not extend to individuals not yet in treatment,” Stein said in the release. “We do not know why the number of patients starting treatment dropped so dramatically, although disruptions caused by the pandemic likely contributed to the trend.”
The researchers noted that the number of individuals who ended buprenorphine treatment significantly decreased as well during the period, according to the release.
“The decreases in new prescriptions were compensated by substantial decreases in the number of individuals ending their buprenorphine treatment episodes, compared to what would have been expected based on the comparable period in 2019,” Stein said.
Rand researchers said that future efforts must focus on expanding buprenorphine access.