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Longer MAT Engagement Linked With Better Outcomes for OUD Patients
The longer individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) engage in medication-assisted treatment (MAT), the less likely they are to overdose, according to a recent study of Medicaid patients conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
Findings were published this month in the journal Addiction.
“Longer is better, but even relatively short episodes of medication treatment for opioid use disorder—as short as 60 days—are associated with significant reductions in the risk of overdose,” Marguerite Burns, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health., who led the study, said in a news release. “We found that protection increases incrementally the longer individuals take medications over a 12-month period.”
The study looked at treatment and overdose data from Wisconsin and 10 other states with high rates of opioid overdose deaths. Outcomes for more than 293,000 Medicaid beneficiaries with OUD who received MAT in 2016 or 2017 were studied. According to a 2021 report by MedPage Today, Medicaid covers about 38% of individuals with OUD.
Researchers found that patients who took medications for OUD for 60 days had a 61% drop in overdose risk compared to those with less than 60 days of treatment. For every additional 60 days of MAT, patients’ overdose risk declined another 10%. Patients were tracked for 1 year.
“Performance metrics that encourage health systems to increase retention in treatment, rather than to meet one duration threshold, may better serve patients,” Burns said.
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