Alerts

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) on Monday released the Biden administration’s plan to reduce the supply of methamphetamine and save lives as meth-related overdose deaths are rising in the United States.

Designed to reduce meth use and prevent meth-involved overdoses, the 25-page plan is also intended to expand access to evidence-based treatment and reduce the trafficking and supply of meth.

“The tragic rise in methamphetamine-involved overdose deaths requires immediate action,” ONDCP Director Rahul Gupta, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., FACP said in his agency’s announcement. “This bold, new action plan builds on the president’s National Drug Control Strategy by expanding access to evidence-based prevention, treatment, and harm reduction strategies, as well as reducing the supply of methamphetamine and other illicit drugs by going after drug trafficking organizations,” Dr. Gupta continued. “This comprehensive and forward-looking action plan will help make our communities healthier and safer.”

The plan applies a public health and safety approach that emphasizes treatment services, harm-reduction services, prevention in schools nationwide, training and education, domestic law enforcement coordination, federal oversight of pill press equipment, international partnerships to disrupt trafficking, and expanded training for domestic and international law enforcement agencies involved in disrupting meth distribution.

NABH participates in the Motivational Incentives Policy Workgroup that has met with ONDCP about broadly implementing the evidence-based treatment practice of contingency management, which the new plan highlights.

You can learn more about the Biden administration’s National Drug Control Strategy at the NABH 2022 Annual Meeting, when Dr. Gupta will address attendees on Tuesday, June 14 at 9:30 a.m. ET in the Grand Ballroom at the Mandarin Oriental Washington, DC.

President Biden on Thursday sent his administration’s inaugural National Drug Control Policy to Congress with the goal of using a whole-of-government approach to combat the nation’s overdose crisis.

The comprehensive strategy focuses on the main drivers of the crisis—untreated addiction and drug trafficking—as it directs federal agencies to take actions that will expand access to evidence-based prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services, while also reducing the supply of drugs.

The plan comes as the nation continues to produce grim statistics: for the first time in America’s history, the country has passed the milestone of 100,000 deaths resulting from drug overdoses in a 12-month period. Meanwhile, since 1999, drug overdoses have killed approximately 1 million Americans.

A message from President Bident to Congress at the beginning of the strategy explains the Office of National Drug Control Policy led the effort to produce the strategy in close collaboration with the 18 national drug control agencies. In addition, the Biden administration involved more than 2,000 leaders and stakeholders, including Congress, all 50 Governors, and advocates representing public safety, public health, community groups, local governments, and Tribal communities.

An important component of the strategy is its emphasis on harm reduction, an approach that works with people who use drugs to prevent overdose and infectious disease transmission; improve the physical, mental, and social wellbeing of those served; and offer flexible options for accessing substance use disorder treatment and other health care services.

“We are changing how we help people when it comes to drug use, by meeting them where they are with high-impact harm reduction services and removing barriers to effective treatment for addiction,” Rahul Gupta, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., director of National Drug Control Policy, said in the document, “while addressing the underlying factors that lead to substance use disorder head on.”

President Biden is expected to announce his administration’s strategy to address the nation’s mental health crisis in the president’s first State of the Union tonight, according to a White House announcement.

The strategy is part of what the White House has called a “unity agenda” that consists of policy in which there has historically been support from both Democrats and Republicans—and for which the president will call on Congress to send bills to his desk that deliver progress for all Americans.

According to the administration, the mental health strategy aims to strengthen system capacity, connect more Americans to care, and create healthy environments where the country’s health and social services infrastructure addresses mental health holistically and equitably.

A White House fact sheet provides detailed action steps for each of these three goals, such as launching the 988 behavioral health crisis hotline that will go live in July; expanding and strengthening parity; and establishing stronger online protections for young people, including prioritizing safety-by-design standards and practices for online platforms, products, and services.

President Biden will deliver the State of the Union at 9 p.m. ET. The address will air on all major broadcast networks and cable news channels.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on Thursday said it will extend for one year the methadone take-home flexibilities it provided to opioid treatment programs (OTPs) at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 and is “considering mechanisms to make this flexibility permanent.”

This flexibility has allowed OTPs to dispense 28 days of take-home methadone doses for stable patients and up to 14 days of take-home methadone medication to less stable patients, based on provider assessments.

SAMHSA’s announcement said it is extending the flexibilities for a year “effective upon the eventual expiration of the Covid-19 Public Health Emergency.”

Click here to read SAMHSA’s announcement.

In its Medicare physician fee schedule proposed rule for 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed extending Medicare coverage to audio-only communication technology for telehealth services to diagnose, evaluate, or treat established patients with mental health disorders and providing Medicare coverage for telemental health services for beneficiaries who are in their homes for appointments.

CMS has proposed limiting the use of an audio-only interactive telecommunications system for mental health services for cases in which practitioners have the capability to provide two-way, audio/video communications, but the beneficiary is not capable of using, or does not consent to using, two-way, audio/video technology. CMS has also proposed requiring a new modifier for services provided using audio-only communications that would certify that the practitioner had the capability to provide two-way, audio/video technology, but instead used audio-only technology due to beneficiary choice or limitations.

In addition, CMS has proposed allowing certain services added to the Medicare telehealth list to remain on the list until Dec. 31, 2023 to create a glide path to evaluate whether the services should be added permanently to this list after the Covid-19 public health emergency (PHE) ends.

CMS is also seeking comment on these proposed recommendations: (1) whether additional documentation should be required in the patient’s medical record to support the clinical appropriateness of audio-only telehealth; (2) whether or not the agency should preclude audio-only telehealth for some high-level services, such as level 4 or 5 E/M visit codes or psychotherapy with crisis; and (3) if there are other “guardrails” the agency should establish to minimize concerns about program integrity and patient safety.

The agency also proposed implementing recently enacted legislation that removes statutory restrictions to provide Medicare coverage of telehealth services for mental health disorders for beneficiaries in any geographic location and in their homes. CMS recommends requiring that an in-person, non-telehealth service be provided by the physician or practitioner furnishing mental health telehealth services within six months prior to the initial telehealth service, and at least once every six months thereafter.

CMS is seeking comment on whether a different interval may be necessary or appropriate for mental health services furnished through audio-only communication technology. The agency is also seeking comment on how to address scenarios where a physician or practitioner of the same specialty/subspecialty in the same group may need to provide a mental health service due to unavailability of the beneficiary’s regular practitioner.

For opioid treatment programs (OTPs), the proposed rule recommends allowing OTPs to provide counseling and therapy services via audio-only interaction (such as telephone calls) after the Covid-19 PHE ends in cases where audio/video communication is not available to the beneficiary, including circumstances in which the beneficiary is not capable of, or does not consent to using, devices that permit a two-way audio/video interaction, provided all other applicable requirements are met.

CMS has proposed requiring that OTPs use a service-level modifier for audio-only services billed using the counseling and therapy add-on code (not bundled services) and document in the medical record the rationale for a service provided using audio-only services, in order to facilitate program-integrity activities.

CMS also proposed coverage for the newly approved, higher dose naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray product, and is delaying compliance with electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS) from January 2022 to January 2023.

Click here for more information about the proposed rule, which will be published in the Federal Register on July 23. CMS will accept comments on the rule until 5 p.m. ET on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021.

President Biden is expected to nominate Rahul Gupta, M.D. M.PH., M.B.A. to serve as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), according to multiple news outlets.

If confirmed, Gupta, a buprenorphine-waivered physician, will be the first physician to serve as the office’s director. Most recently Gupta served as senior vice president and chief medical and health officer at the March of Dimes. Previously he served as West Virginia’s health commissioner and is known to be an ally of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

NABH has learned that harm-reduction advocates do not support Gupta’s nomination because of their concerns about how he managed an HIV outbreak in West Virginia, citing a lack of support for needle exchanges, an evidence-based practice that reduces HIV, viral hepatitis, and other infections. ONDCP’s drug policy priorities published in April 2021 have strong harm-reduction priorities, including funding support syringe exchange programs and amplifying best practices for fentanyl test strips.

Gupta has been a frontrunner for the position, along with Regina LaBelle, currently ONDCP’s acting director who took a leave of absence from her role as a distinguished scholar and program director at the Addiction and Public Policy Initiative at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute.

NABH coordinated a stakeholder letter to the Biden Administration that requested the president appoint an ONDCP director to address the highest rates of opioid overdose deaths ever recorded, stating that the pandemic exacerbated what was already an inadequate level of treatment for people with a substance use disorder in the United States.

The National Association for Behavioral Healthcare is pleased to introduce the NABH Denial-of-Care Portal, a resource for members to provide information about their experiences with managed care organizations that impose barriers to care through insurance-claim denials.

NABH’s Managed Care Committee has worked for more than a year to develop the Denial-of-Care Portal as a way to collect specific data on insurers who deny care—often without regard to parity or the effects on patients.

This NABH member-only, survey-like tool allows users to add the name of a managed care organization, type of plan, level of care, type of care (mental health or substance use disorder), duration of approved treatment, duration of unapproved treatment, criteria used to deny a claim, and more.

The portal allows members to submit individual examples of claim denials or upload multiple entries via Excel. It also includes sections on appeals and physician participation. In time, the tool could be a valuable resource for the NABH team’s advocacy efforts.

“One of the best ways we can advocate for parity enforcement with policymakers and regulators is to provide hard data from our members that show how insurers are not complying with the landmark 2008 parity law,” said NABH President and CEO Shawn Coughlin. “We hope to gather this critical data through our new Denial-of-Care Portal.”

Please e-mail Emily Wilkins, NABH’s administrative coordinator, if you have questions.

As always, thank you for all you do each day to support and advance NABH’s mission and vision!

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday that practitioners prescribing buprenorphine, a controlled substance, for opioid use disorder to fewer than 30 patients are exempt from certain regulatory requirements codified under 21 U.S.C. 823(g)(2)(B)(i)-(ii).

Under the new guidance, physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, certified registered nurse anesthetists, and certified nurse midwives are exempt from having to make certain training related certifications and certifying their capacity to provide counseling and other ancillary services. The guideline does not remove the DATA 200 Waiver, otherwise known as the ‘X-Waiver.’

Providers are still required to file a Notice of Intent with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The exemption applies to practitioners who are state-licensed and DEA-registered. It also generally limits prescribing to patients who are located in states where the practitioner is licensed.

Practicing under this exemption does not count toward the time requirements for prescribing to a higher patient limit under 21 U.S.C. 823(g)(2)(B)(iii). This exemption also applies to other Schedule III, IV, and V drugs.

Tuesday’s guidance encourages practitioners to provide access to psychosocial services to improve treatment retention and outcomes. In addition, medical education institutions are strongly encouraged to implement comprehensive training in substance use disorder diagnosis and management.

In late January, the Biden administration placed a freeze on Trump administration guidelines that intended to exempt physicians from the X-Waiver. That notice cited clinical concerns and stated the Executive Branch did not have the legal authority to make the change.