What You Should Know: Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued the “Temporary Extension of COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescription of Controlled Medications” – a temporary rule that extends telemedicine flexibilities adopted during the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE).· The temporary rule will take effect on May 11, 2023, and extends the full set of telemedicine flexibilities
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Substance Abuse
Opioid Settlements are Making Headlines; Is Now The Time to Soften Guidelines?
The United States only represents five percent of the world’s population; however, Americans consume 80 percent of the world’s opioids.1 The U.S. is the world’s leader in the use of opioid medications to cope with physical and emotional difficulties. And the recent Walgreens and Wal-Mart multi-state opioid settlement agreement disclosures have only hammered home the point. America continues to have an opioid addiction problem. In light of all these circumstances, the recent CDC
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Bicycle Health, Wellpath to Provide Opioid Use Disorder Treatment to Federal Bureau of Prisons
What You Should Know: - Bicycle Health, a telehealth provider of integrated medical and behavioral health treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) is teaming up with Wellpath, the premier provider of localized, compassionate care to vulnerable patients in challenging clinical environments, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP). - The collaboration will enable patients to access Bicycle Health’s evidence-based, life-saving clinical care model delivering virtual Medication for
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Curebase Launches Remote First DTx Research Platform
What You Should Know: - Curebase, a company committed to democratizing access to clinical trials, announced the release of its integrated software and services package for digital therapeutics (DTx) trials that accelerates enrollment and allows sponsors to launch their studies faster. - Available now, the new Curebase offering includes the first one-stop-shop decentralized clinical trial (DCT) platform bundled with site and trial execution services for the DTx market. Making
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Fitbit Enters Substance Abuse Recovery with Pretaa Partnership
What You Should Know: - Fitbit announced that they are partnering with behavioral analytics company Pretaa to improve outcomes for the millions of Americans affected by substance abuse. Pretaa analyzes information from wearable devices worn by those recovering from substance abuse and (with patient consent) notifies their care providers, friends and family members when they might need additional support. - Research indicates that the onset of the pandemic was associated with an
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Biden-Harris Admin Awards $1.5B to Address Overdose Epidemic
What You Should Know: - The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), awarded nearly $1.5 billion to support states, tribal lands, and territories’ efforts to address the opioid crisis and support individuals in recovery. - The grants are part of SAMHSA’s State Opioid Response and Tribal Opioid Response grant programs. The grant programs provide funding to states and territories to increase access to
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Bicycle Health, Tele911 Partner to Bring OUD Care to Emergency Patients
What You Should Know: - Bicycle Health, a provider of virtual opioid addiction treatment, and Tele911, a telemedicine company specializing in reducing medically unnecessary ambulance transports of stable 911 patients to hospital ERs, today announced a partnership to increase access to opioid use disorder care for patients in emergency situations. - The partnership between the two organizations will ensure that patients experiencing health crises stemming from or in addition to opioid use
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Cybercriminals Use Bots to Steal Active Pharmacy Accounts and Resell Prescriptions
What You Should Know: - Cybercriminals are leveraging illegal bots to steal pharmacy accounts and resell prescriptions on a secondary market for in-demand substances, like Oxycodone, according to recent research from Kasada’s threat intelligence team. has recently shared research by its threat intelligence team about a new, illegal use of bots -. - Researchers have also identified an acceleration in this activity: over the past 60 days, the number of stolen pharmacy accounts available
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Analysis: Seeking Balance in the Hyperactive Mental Health Tech Market
The prevalence of mental and behavioral health conditions has been on the rise in recent decades, further aggravated by the pandemic in the last two years. Social isolation, grief from the loss of loved ones, fear of contracting the virus, and financial worries were all major stress factors that increasingly affected the mental wellbeing of the population, and the resulting statistics are startling: the average share of adults with symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders jumped from 1
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Why a Focus on Behavioral Health is Key to Improving Quality Measures
Since the passage of the Medicare Improvements for Patients & Providers Act in 2008, the U.S. healthcare system has been moving towards value-based care (VBC) which encourages health providers to improve care quality by reimbursing them based on successful outcomes rather than individual medical services. The overarching goal of VBC is to improve the patient experience, improve population health, and reduce per capita health costs. As part of this VBC model, hospitals and health systems
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