Top Highlights

• Limits to accessing care can make the epidemic worse. The structure of insurance benefits in the U.S. often incentivizes prescribing (relatively cheap) opioids over the more extended care an individual may need (e.g., a course of physical therapy, orthodontic surgery, extended mental health treatment).
• The U.S. practice of tying high-quality health insurance to employment — unique among developed countries — often means that severely addicted people will not get substance use disorder (SUD) treatment because they cannot obtain or hold down such jobs. Furthermore, the patchwork system of uncoordinated providers and payers makes it easier for peopl...
• It’s not just the volume of opioid prescribing that matters, but where and how opioids are prescribed and used.
• That is understandable. Synthetic opioids present a more elusive target for law enforcement than does heroin. Unlike opioids derived from poppy crops, synthetic opioids can be produced anywhere, and in small, indoor operations. Some of them are so extraordinarily potent — at least 25 times as potent, per gram, as heroin — that the quantities transp...

Domain