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Telehealth Improves MAT Engagement Among Vets with OUD
Widespread adoption of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic has kept more veterans with opioid addiction engaged in medication-assisted treatment (MAT), according to a new study by the University of Michigan and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
The study covered veterans who received buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) before and after care visits were shifted to phone and video platforms as a result of the pandemic in early 2020. For all of 2020, phone-only visits outpaced both video and in-person visits. By early 2021, phone visits accounted for about half of all buprenorphine-related engagements with providers, compared to video-based (32%) and in-person (17%) visits.
Furthermore, while the total number of veterans receiving addiction treatment of any kind dropped by 6% from March 2019 to February 2021, the number receiving buprenorphine increased by 14%.
“Telehealth for patients receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder was relatively new in the VA nationwide before the pandemic struck, and only video was allowed. The rapid switch to virtual visits for most patients kept people from dropping out of care, and telephone visits played a key role,” study lead author Allison Lin, MD, MS, an addiction psychiatrist and researcher in the Addiction Center at the University of Michigan’s academic medical center and the VA Center for Clinical Management Research, said in a news release.
“Thanks to the VA’s national patient data system, we’re able to provide some of the first understanding of phone, video and in-person visits across the pre-pandemic and pandemic era.”
As legislators consider making permanent the loosening of certain restrictions around telehealth-based treatment that were enacted during the pandemic, Dr Lin said the study findings indicate that phone access could be a critical tool for maintaining treatment engagement among MAT patients who may lack stable housing, or computer and/or Internet access moving forward.
“Anecdotally, some clinics have seen no-shows decrease over the past 2 years, because we could do phone or video,” Dr Lin explained. “Throughout the pandemic, the assumption has been that we have to return to pre-COVID-19 status. But this may be a case where any attempts to push people back to in-person care if they don’t want to go, or to prohibit virtual visits, might have unintended effects. If policies don’t allow flexibility and provide options, we may lose people, some of whom have only known care via phone or video.”
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