President Joe Biden's administration rolled back a plan by former President Donald Trump's administration to allow physicians to prescribe buprenorphine to treat opioid-use disorder, the Washington Post reported Jan. 27.
What you should know:
1. Health and Human Services announced a guideline focused around buprenorphine Jan. 14, the White House said in a message obtained by the Post. "Unfortunately, the announcement was made prematurely. Therefore, the guidelines previously announced cannot be issued at this time," the message read.
2. The Trump administration's plan was heavily supported by lawmakers and physician groups. However, the plan had legal and operational issues and was not cleared by the White House budget office.
"The Biden-Harris administration absolutely supports broader access to medication-based treatment for opioid-use disorder and is working to find ways to lift burdensome restrictions on medications for opioid-use disorder treatment," a spokesperson for the White House's drug policy office said to the Post.
3. The plan would have made some physicians exempt from a waiver that required physicians to undergo a dayong training before they could prescribe buprenorphine by exempting those physicians with a Drug Enforcement Administration narcotics-prescribing license, according to the Post.
4. Legislators are introducing policies in the House and Senate to eliminate the waiver.