• Nicholas A Livingston, Victoria Ameral, Anne N Banducci, and Risa B Weisberg.
• National Center for PTSD, Behavioral Sciences Division, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, United States of America; U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, VA Boston Healthcare System, Boston, MA, United States of America; Department of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, United States of America. Electronic address: nicholas.livingston@va.gov.
• J Subst Abuse Treat. 2021 Mar 1; 122: 108222.

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic struck in the midst of an ongoing opioid epidemic. To offset disruption to life-saving treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), several federal agencies granted exemptions to existing federal regulations. This included loosening restrictions on medications for OUD (MOUD), including methadone and buprenorphine. In this commentary, we briefly review policy and practice guidelines for treating OUD prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. We then outline specific MOUD treatment policy and practice exemptions that went into effect in February and March 2020, and discuss the ways in which these unprecedented changes have dramatically changed MOUD treatment. Given the unprecedented nature of these changes, and unknown outcomes to date, we advocate for a data-driven approach to guide future policy and practice recommendations regarding MOUD. We outline several critical clinical, research, and policy questions that can inform MOUD treatment in a post-COVID-19 era.Published by Elsevier Inc.

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