Despite relaxed pandemic telehealth rules, rural patients still have difficulty getting medication for opioid-use disorder

Experts agree that medication-assisted treatment is the best way to treat opioid-use disorder, but only one in nine people with OUD receive such treatment. Telehealth can increase access to medication-assisted treatments such as buprenorphine, especially since the federal government relaxed telehealth regulations during the pandemic.

However, OUD patients in rural and other under-served areas still face many barriers to access. In an interview with Stateline, emergency medicine physician Elizabeth Samuels discusses those barriers, how pandemic-era policy changes have helped overcome them, and what policymakers must consider to further increase access to underserved areas. Read the interview here.