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Nationwide Service to Match Opioid-Addicted Patients With Physicians Offering Private In-Office Medical Treatment

Posted on: Thursday, 7 September 2006, 09:21 CDT

FARMINGTON, Conn., Sept. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- The non-profit patient advocacy group NAABT, the National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment (http://www.naabt.org/), is launching its National Patient/Physician Matching System to connect people who are addicted to opioids with doctors able to provide medical treatment with buprenorphine in the privacy of the doctor's office. The free-of-charge matching system is the latest extension of the overall goal of NAABT, which is to educate the public on opioid dependence, buprenorphine treatment, and the benefits of treating addiction in a doctor's private office with prescription medications and appropriate psychosocial therapy.

"Buprenorphine treatment is an extremely effective weapon in the fight against addiction," said Timothy Lepak, president of NAABT. "Many of the patients I speak with who are now able to manage their opioid addiction with the help of buprenorphine say that it has saved their lives. Unfortunately, despite the effectiveness of this treatment, patient access to buprenorphine treatment has suffered because too few doctors are certified to prescribe it, and because currently there is a limit of 30 patients per doctor. As a result, many patients find themselves on waiting lists when seeking buprenorphine treatment. Our new system allows patients to alert numerous physicians simultaneously of their need for treatment, saving time and hopefully quickening their access to this valuable treatment."

About the NAABT National Patient/Physician Matching System

Ideally, someone seeking buprenorphine treatment for opioid addiction would be able to call a doctor and schedule an appointment. However, that is not always the case, and patients seeking treatment may be put on waiting lists either because there may not be enough physicians certified in a given area, or because certified local physicians may already have reached their 30-patient limit. The NAABT National Patient/Physician Matching System allows patients to register anonymously for treatment in a given geographical region, thereby alerting physicians in that area that they are seeking treatment. Once an area physician has the capacity to treat an additional patient, the NAABT National Patient/Physician Matching System allows the physician to contact that patient confidentially by email to discuss treatment.

The patient registration process is simple and can be completed in less than three minutes. It consists of a short list of questions that helps appropriately match patients to doctors who have the proper experience to help them. All patient information is confidential and resides on a secure server; the only contact information required is an email address for physician contact. For added confidentiality, the email address is immediately and automatically converted into an ID#, and that is the only contact information made available to the physician.

About Buprenorphine Treatment for Opioid Addiction

Buprenorphine is an FDA-approved medicine used to treat opioid addiction that can be prescribed by doctors in their offices and with take-home prescriptions. Many patients prefer the privacy and convenience that office-based treatment offers. Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist, which allows it to be used to treat opioid dependence for two critical reasons: first, it acts on the brain in a way similar to full opioid agonists (prescription opioid painkillers, heroin or methadone) to largely or entirely prevent cravings and withdrawal; and second, because it is a partial agonist it does not excite the same level of opioid-induced brain activity as full agonists do, and thus does not produce the same euphoric effect as full agonists. Buprenorphine is sold under the brand name Suboxone(R) by Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals.

Effective treatments for opioid addiction is of growing importance. According to a report published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) entitled the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2005), there are 1.5 million Americans who use heroin. In addition, in 2004 approximately 4.4 million teens and adults nationwide reported using prescription opioid painkillers for nonmedical purposes (i). In terms of new users, in 2004 more people misused opioid pain relievers for the first time than any other drug, including marijuana and cocaine, and opioid painkillers are the most heavily misused substances among teens and young adults (ii). It has been shown that the public is not fully aware that misusing prescription opioid painkillers is as harmful to the body, and fully as addictive, as heroin misuse (iii); a recent national survey on the public's perceptions of opioid addiction, Prescription Painkiller/Heroin Addiction and Treatment, revealed that nearly half of the US public does not understand this fact.

About the National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment (NAABT)

The primary goal of NAABT is to increase the level of successful healthcare administered to patients who are addicted to opioids. To achieve this goal, NAABT uses education and patient resources to raise public awareness both of the disease of opioid addiction as well as of buprenorphine treatment.

Reversing the current stigma and misinformation associated with drug addiction and its treatment is critical to NAABT's mission. Opioid addiction is often unfairly viewed as a weakness that affects a certain type or class of people. Opioid addiction is devastating to people everywhere, and it cuts across all demographics. Establishing the fact that opioid addiction is a chronic brain disease and not a "bad habit" is critical. Like other long-term medical conditions, opioid addiction should be treated in the same manner as our healthcare system treats other chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Opioid addiction can now be effectively treated with buprenorphine combined with appropriate psychosocial care, in the privacy of a doctor's office, and NAABT wishes to act as a free-of-charge conduit between patients who are seeking buprenorphine treatment and doctors who are able to provide it.

i Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2005). Overview of Findings from the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (Office of Applied Studies, NSDUH Series H-27, DHHS Publication No. SMA 05-4061). ii Rockville, MD, and National Institute on Drug Abuse, Monitoring the Future Annual Survey: Johnston, L. D. et al. (December 19, 2005). Teen drug use down but progress halts among youngest teens. University of Michigan News and Information Services: Ann Arbor, MI. iii Schulman, Ronca, & Bucuvalas, Inc., Prescription Painkiller/Heroin Addiction and Treatment, 2006. Available to download from http://www.srbi.com/national_survey_on_painkillers.html Contact: National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment (NAABT) http://www.naabt.org/ Nancy Jean Barmashi [860-810-0768] nbarmashi@naabt.org

National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment

CONTACT: Nancy Jean Barmashi of the National Alliance of Advocates forBuprenorphine Treatment (NAABT), +1-860-810-0768, nbarmashi@naabt.org

Web site: http://www.naabt.org/

Source: PRNewswire

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