Opioid Initiative
In the fight to combat the opiate epidemic in America, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a new initiative. Priorities include changing physicians’ opioid prescribing practices, expanding the use of naloxone, which treats overdoses, and expanding medication-assisted treatment to address addiction and mortality related to opioid drugs. An HHS fact sheet released April 24, 2019, says that: from January 2017 to February 2019, there has been a 23 percent increase in patients receiving buprenorphine and a 42 percent increase in prescriptions for naltrexone. Community health centers funded by HRSA [Health Resources and Services Administration] saw a…
