Study: Medicaid waivers have limited impact on opioid overdose crisis

News-Medical.Net November 4, 2024
Oregon Health & Science University

For generations, the federal government has largely refrained from paying for mental health and substance use treatment in large residential facilities.

That changed in 2015 when, in response to increasing overdose deaths nationwide from illicit drugs, the federal government allowed states to waive a longstanding prohibition against using federal Medicaid funding for services in so-called institutions of mental diseases. In turn, states were required to improve their addiction care with an emphasis on increasing treatment with medications.

Yet a new study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University finds no overall benefit in terms of increased treatment or decrease in nonfatal overdoses among the 17 states that received those waivers between 2017 and 2019, compared with 18 that did...

Today's Sponsors

Today's Sponsor