ASAM’s New Guidance Prioritizes Patient-Focused Addiction Treatment

The newly released fourth edition criteria from the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) has a renewed focus on holistic and patient-centered care for treating substance use disorders (SUD).

Some of the main topics include a focus on chronic care treatment, integrated care, treating co-occurring conditions, recovery support services and harm reduction models.

ASAM is a physician-led professional group for clinicians involved in the care of individuals with SUD. The criteria are a set of guidelines “for placement, continued stay, transfer or discharge of patients with addiction and co-occurring conditions.”

One of the most significant changes to the new edition is a new dimension focusing on patient-centered considerations. This replaced the “readiness to change” dimension, which industry insiders said is now woven through every other dimension.

When ASAM first released the new guidelines in October, some confusion was expressed about the absence of partial hospitalization programs (PHPs) as a level of care listed.

But ASAM authors clarified that the guidelines did not eliminate PHPs, so much as tried to rename the service to high-intensity outpatient programs or HIOPs. The reasoning was to clarify the term since many PHP providers are not in a hospital.

OhioMHAS Virtual Data Forum — January 31, 2024

The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) is pleased to announce our next Data Forum on January 31, 2024, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The purpose of the Data Forum is to:

• highlight new data resources, share information about current and upcoming data projects;
• facilitate opportunities for peer-to-peer learning;
• demonstrate how data can be used in the daily practice of ADAMH Boards and Behavioral Health providers; and
• discuss local needs related to data and data infrastructure.

The Data Forum series is intended to provide a venue for sharing timely and useful best practices, examples, and resources for ADAMH Boards and behavioral health providers that may be implementing or updating their own data systems and data analytic capabilities.

Intended Audience

This resource is intended for any stakeholders who are interested in learning about data and data resources, including ADAMH Board and Behavioral Health provider leadership and staff who work with, manage, and communicate data at all levels.

JANUARY DATA FORUM AGENDA

1. Overview – Ohio Quick Response Team (QRT) Data Dashboard and the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Data Dashboard: Ellen Augspurger, Cordata Healthcare Innovations, LLC.
2. New Data Product – Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services Data Product Finder
3. Update – Data Modernization Project

Click here to register.

Sweeping Bill to Fight Opioid Addiction will be Considered by Senate Health Committee

The U.S. Senate health committee will consider a sweeping bill next week meant to combat the opioid epidemic. The proposal would reauthorize a number of programs first created by the SUPPORT Act, an addiction-focused bill that Congress first passed in 2018.

Many of those programs’ authorizations expired earlier this year, however, leading advocates to worry that lawmakers no longer view the issue as a priority.   

If passed, the legislation would mark Capitol Hill’s first major action this year on the addiction crisis. Current data shows that roughly 110,000 Americans are dying of drug overdoses each year. Roughly 85,000 of those overdoses involve opioids.

Still, Congress in recent years has done little to address the crisis. In one notable exception late last year, lawmakers did pass a bill that allowed doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to prescribe buprenorphine, a common medication used to treat opioid use disorder, directly to patients without undergoing special training. The new law, however, doesn’t appear to have driven a meaningful increase in the number of prescribers. The updated SUPPORT Act would reauthorize programs that provide funding to community-based organizations working to address the addiction crisis, make permanent certain provisions that expanded access to addiction medications, and expand access to treatment for pregnant women and, separately, incarcerated people.

Supreme Court Split on Whether the Sackler Family can be Sued Over Opioid Crisis

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared divided over whether the Sackler family, which made its fortune selling a drug that fueled the nation's opioid epidemic, could be shielded from civil lawsuits by paying $6 billion to victims and drug treatment programs as part of a bankruptcy settlement with the company it once ran. The high court is being asked to decide a question related to bankruptcy law, but just below the surface is a wrenching debate over how much to punish the Sacklers for their role in the crisis -- and whether blowing up the current settlement might jeopardize any payout for tens of thousands of victims and their families. The vast majority of victims support the settlement with Purdue Pharma, the company that made OxyContin and marketed the drug as less addictive than other opioids. But the Justice Department stepped into the case to question whether courts can absolve the Sackler family from future lawsuits − a practice that has been used in major bankruptcies dealing with harms caused by asbestos and silicone breast implants.