Increased use of telehealth services and medications for opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic associated with reduced risk for fatal overdose
The expanded availability of opioid use disorder-related telehealth services and medications during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a lowered likelihood of fatal drug overdose among Medicare beneficiaries, according to a new study.
Published in JAMA Psychiatry, this study is a collaborative research effort led by researchers at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a part of CDC; the Office of the Administrator and the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality, both part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a part of the National Institutes of Health.
In this national study, researchers analyzed data among two cohorts of Medicare beneficiaries to explore receipt of opioid use disorder-related telehealth services, receipt of medications for opioid use disorder, and fatal overdoses before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To do this, they compared data from two cohorts of Medicare beneficiaries across two time periods. The first cohort was constructed with data from September 2018-February 2020 and included 105,162 Medicare beneficiaries with opioid use disorder (the “pre-pandemic cohort”). The second cohort was constructed with data from September 2019-February 2021 and included 70,479 Medicare beneficiaries with opioid use disorder, (the “pandemic” cohort). In addition, the researchers conducted an analysis to examine the demographic and clinical characteristics associated with fatal overdose in the pandemic cohort.
Key findings of this study include:
- Medicare beneficiaries that began a new episode of opioid use disorder-related care during the pandemic and received opioid use disorder-related telehealth services were found to have a 33% lower risk of a fatal drug overdose.
- Medicare beneficiaries who received medications for opioid use disorder from opioid treatment programs and those who received buprenorphine, one of the medications for opioid use disorder, in office-based settings also had reduced odds of a fatal drug overdose of 59% and 38%, respectively.
- Mortality rates (classified as all-cause mortality and drug overdose mortality specifically) were higher in the pandemic cohort compared to the pre-pandemic cohort; however, the percentage of deaths due to drug overdose were similar between the two cohorts.
