WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it would move forward with a dramatic deregulation of addiction medicine first proposed by the Trump administration in January.
The change would allow almost any prescriber to treat patients using the drug buprenorphine, the most effective medication for opioid addiction. Currently, doctors, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners must undergo a separate training and apply for a waiver before they’re allowed to prescribe the drug to patients.
For years, many addiction physicians and public health advocates have argued that the “X-waiver,” as the special buprenorphine license is known, poses a barrier to basic care for patients with opioid addiction. In particular, many have argued that if a doctor can prescribe potentially addictive prescription pain drugs, they should also be able to prescribe the medicine used to treat the addiction.
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