American Society of Addiciton Medicine

Pharmacy Access to Medications to Treat Opioid Use Disorder

Practice Management

Pharmacy Access to Medications to Treat Opioid Use Disorder

Home Advocacy Practice Management Pharmacy Access

This page provides a summary of issues impacting access to addiction treatment medications, updates, ASAM's advocacy efforts to eliminate these barriers, communications from the federal agencies and Congress, select research, and a form to report access issues at pharmacies for clinicians experiencing issues.

Challenges at Pharmacies to Accessing Addiction Medications

While challenges to accessing buccal/sublingual buprenorphine at pharmacies have been a focal point for policymakers, less attention has been paid to specific challenges to accessing buprenorphine monoproduct tablets, long-acting injectable (LAI) buprenorphine, and LAI naltrexone, the latter indicated for OUD and alcohol use disorder (AUD). Finally, long standing federal regulations prohibit pharmacies from dispensing methadone when prescribed for the treatment of OUD rather than for pain.

Nonfulfillment of the Core Function to Dispense

In defining pharmacy practice, states traditionally include the core function to dispense lawful prescriptions but not necessarily a duty to so dispense. Washington, New Jersey, and California have enacted “duty to dispense” clauses; New Jersey’s law maintains pharmacy practice sites must properly dispense lawful prescriptions without undue delay. The inconsistent availability of buprenorphine for pharmacists to dispense lawful prescriptions promptly suggests certain factors are contributing to some pharmacists’ nonfulfillment of the core function to dispense, including misinterpretation of buprenorphine’s associated risks, and addiction stigma. Indeed, pharmacy organizations are establishing consensus-based guidelines for pharmacy access to buprenorphine. Factors resulting in nonfulfillment of the core function to dispense could be addressed by programs that facilitate the dispensing of opioid agonist medications lawfully prescribed for OUD, such as those providing financial incentives to retail pharmacies.

Ambiguity Related to Pharmacists’ Corresponding Responsibility

Another determining factor contributing to access challenges at pharmacies is pharmacists’ application of, and attempts to resolve, red flags applied to buprenorphine prescribed for OUD under DEA policy, which is largely imposed on DEA-registered pharmacies and pharmacists through adjudication. Under DEA regulations, pharmacists have “corresponding responsibility” with prescribing practitioners for the proper prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances. To be “effective,” controlled medication prescriptions must be “issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his [sic] professional practice.” “Knowingly filling” a purported prescription for a controlled substance that was not so issued is subject to penalties. While the DEA recommends best practices for identifying out of scope prescriptions in The DEA’s Pharmacists’ Manual, pharmacies must generally glean red flags from the DEA’s regular enforcement actions. These enforcement actions – for certain controlled medication dispensing practices when red flags suggestive of diversion were not resolved prior to dispensing – revoke pharmacies’ DEA registrations. Red flags commonly cited in such actions include pattern prescribing, patients traveling far distances, cocktail/drug combination or cash payment for prescription medication, therapeutic duplication, and doctor shopping. State boards of pharmacy may also levy fines, place on probation, suspend, or revoke licenses for not preventing diversion effectively.

Other Legal Compliance Concerns

DEA-registered manufacturers and distributors must report “suspicious orders,” including unusual sizes, patterns, or frequencies of orders of controlled substances to the DEA and relevant division offices, which may be done through the DEA’s centralized database, the Suspicious Orders Report System (SORS) required by 2018 federal legislation. In 2023, the DEA clarified that neither the DEA, nor the CSA as amended in 2018, regulates the volume of controlled substances with quantitative thresholds that limit registrants’ ordering or dispensing, but rather requires registrants to design and operate a system to identify suspicious orders, which may involve the use of self-set purchasing thresholds.

Settlement agreements among states attorneys general, including with Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS, and Cardinal Health, AmeriSourceBergen, and McKesson, the latter three denoted “Injunctive Relief Distributors” under an agreement effective July 2021, likely exacerbated legal compliance concerns, especially within retail chain pharmacies. The agreement with Injunctive Relief Distributors requires them to implement systems applying specific metrics for identifying “Red Flags,” using specific dispensing datasets that are provided by their retail pharmacy customers to (1) review the total number and dosage units of dispensed prescription medications, (2) evaluate sales of controlled substances to cash-paying patients, (3) review the top prescribers of certain “highly diverted” controlled substances, and (4) consider the extent to which a pharmacy serves out-of-area patients. Under Injunctive Relief Distributors’ settlement agreement terms, “highly diverted” substances can include buprenorphine.

The presence of patients at pharmacies who have an undefined distance to their prescriber, pay in cash, or use medication ‘slang,’ can cause some pharmacists not to dispense buprenorphine, and further, it can cause some pharmacists to require patients/prescribers to provide diagnostic codes on prescriptions, prescribers to confirm via telephone the patient’s medication dose or quantity or the prescribers’ location and specialty, or finally, for some pharmacists to state counterfactually that the pharmacy simply does not stock buprenorphine. Although the DEA advised registered distributors in March 2024 to reexamine self-set thresholds to ensure timely patient access to buprenorphine, buprenorphine dispensing challenges persist.

Unique Challenges Related to Certain Addiction Medication Formulations

Buprenorphine is available alone (“BUP”) or in combination with naloxone (“BNX”), the latter intended to prevent misuse. Practice guidelines and payers’ restrictions discourage the prescription of BUP for OUD treatment unless a clinical exception applies. However, the addition of naloxone to buprenorphine may not add any real misuse deterrent utility, indicating the use of BUP outside those narrow clinical exceptions is also appropriate at the prescribers' professional discretion. After an initiation period with buccal/sublingual BNX or BUP, buprenorphine is available in a monthly or weekly LAI formulation (“Sublocade” or “Brixadi”) that eliminates daily dosing; however, both LAI medications are costly, their coverage made contingent on payers’ utilization management policies, and both are subject to a federally-required restricted distribution system (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy or “REMS”) intended to prevent their direct dispensing to patients and potential self-administration. Thus, REMS limits the ability to order and dispense Sublocade and Brixadi to only certified health care settings and pharmacies with procedures and processes in place that include prohibiting the distribution, transfer, loan, or sale of Sublocade and Brixadi.

ASAM Advocacy 

May 10, 2024: The American Medical Association, American Pharmacists Association, American Society of Addiction Medicine, and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists sent a letter to DEA, DOJ, HHS, SAMHSA, and ONDCP regarding suspicious orders reporting requirements related to buprenorphine prescribing. The letter asked DOJ/DEA to not enforce suspicious order reporting requirements for buprenorphine.

July 18, 2024: ASAM releases public policy statement on The Role of Pharmacists in Medications for Addiction Treatment.

Resources

Pharmacy Access Survey

If you or your patient is experiencing issues obtaining buprenorphine prescriptions from pharmacies, please let ASAM know by completing this survey. If you have questions about the survey, please reach out to ASAM at advocacy@asam.org.

The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and the National Community Pharmacists Association began distributing a first-of-its-kind practice guideline to the nation’s 60,000 community pharmacists. It’s part of an ambitious effort to increase access to buprenorphine for opioid use disorder (OUD).  The Pharmacy Access to Resources and Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (PhARM-OUD) Guideline is designed to educate pharmacists about the importance of providing access to buprenorphine and help them navigate a complex set of regulatory and clinical barriers to access. It’s been endorsed by a wide array of professional societies and advocacy organizations, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Pharmacists Association, the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and Vital Strategies.

Communications from Federal Agencies and Congress

  • March 11, 2024: Joint letter from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), US Department of Health and Human Services, and the US Department of Justice reinforcing support for medications to treat opioid use disorder and urging distributors to reexamine any quantitative thresholds that may inhibit access to medications.
  • February 8, 2024: Bipartisan US Senate letter to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting that buprenorphine be added to the agency's essential medicines list.
  • December 2023: SAMHSA Policy Priority Roundtable Summary Report: In August 2022, SAMHSA convened a Policy Priority Roundtable with pharmacy organizations, state health departments, nonprofit associations, academic institutions, and people with lived experiences where pharmacy organizations called for an opportunity to engage directly with federal agencies about challenges affecting buprenorphine supply.
  • December 2023: SAMHSA Virtual Town Hall Report: SAMHSA joined other federal partners to jointly host a town hall where participants, including pharmacy organizations involved in buprenorphine distribution, discussed challenges and solutions to increase access to this life-saving medication. 
  • May 5, 2023: Senators Hassan, Heinrich & Colleagues Call on DEA to Remove Barriers to Lifesaving Opioid Treatment. The letter calls attention to reports of patients unable to get their buprenorphine prescriptions at pharmacies. Read the full letter here.
  • March 23, 2023: Congressman Paul Tonko and colleagues sent a letter to DEA recommending additional actions to remove barriers to buprenorphine, especially at US pharmacies. Read the full letter here.
  • January 20, 2023: Letter from DEA noting that agency regulations nor the Controlled Substance Act establish quantitative thresholds or place limits on the volume of controlled substances DEA registrants can order and dispense. The letter also noted a requirement to establish systems to identify and report suspicious orders of controlled substances, including for MOUD.

Select Research