State health policy nonprofit highlights effective state-level opioid epidemic strategies

The opioid epidemic is one of the top issues in every state in the nation, but not all states are tackling it in the same way. The National Academy for State Health Policy, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization made for and of state health officials, met recently with policy makers from a dozen states to talk about what they find challenging and what they find effective in the fight. "While the challenges and complexity of this work can be staggering, states generally share a few common goals: prevent addiction, stop people from dying, and get people into treatment," Kitty Purington writes for NASHP.

After those discussions with state leaders, NASHP has identified a few strategies that are showing results:

• Track opioid prescribing to keep drug-seeking patients from getting pain pill prescriptions from multiple doctors.
• Invest in harm reduction by training more people to administer naloxone and making the overdose drug more readily available. 
• Build capacity for Medication-Assisted Treatment. MAT is the gold standard for treating opioid addiction, but many areas, especially rural, don't have access to it because of a lack of qualified prescribers or treatment facilities.
• Keep an eye on newly freed opioid addicts. The first two weeks after an opioid addict's release from prison or jail is particularly dangerous, since users are much more likely to fatally overdose during that time period. Rhode Island is trying to counter this by offering MAT to inmates statewide. And though inmates can't receive Medicaid benefits, NASHP suggests that states begin their enrollment process before their release so they can access MAT immediately. 
• Ensure access in rural areas. Rural residents often face higher barriers to addiction treatment than suburban and urban residents, including transportation difficulties, lack of facilities and/or qualified prescribers, lack of broadband to access telehealth addiction services, and stigma. 
• Expand Medicaid. Opioid addicts in states that have expanded Medicaid generally have more access to affordable treatment.