ASAM Urges Senate HELP Committee to Pass a Strong SUPPORT Act Reauthorization Bill

On November 21, ASAM sent a letter to the leadership of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), urging strong policymaking to tackle America's substance use challenges. Outlining five policy solutions that interlock for an exponentially stronger approach to the U.S.' addiction and overdose crisis, ASAM urged the Committee's leadership to include the following provisions in the bill: 

• S.3200 – the Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program Reauthorization Act (STAR-LRP), legislation that would double this loan repayment program for individuals with student loans that have pursued full-time substance use disorder (SUD) treatment jobs in high-need areas and grant the program federal tax exempt status, ultimately helping to address severe SUD workforce shortages in areas where it is most needed;
• S. 644 - the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act, legislation that would authorize the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to issue a special registration for opioid treatment program (OTP) prescribing clinicians and addiction specialist physicians to use their clinical expertise in prescribing methadone for opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment that could be picked up at pharmacies, subject to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA) rules or guidance on the supply of methadone for unsupervised use, and responsibly expand access to methadone treatment for OUD across the U.S.;
• S. 3193 - the TREATS Act, legislation that would establish a new, audio-video or audio-only, telehealth evaluation exception to the Ryan Haight Act’s in-person exam requirement for the purposes of prescribing Schedule III-V controlled medications approved for the treatment of SUD, and continue to enhance the reach of the nation's addiction specialist workforce via telemedicine;
• S. 3145 - the Improving Access to Addiction Medicine Providers Act, legislation that would finally modernize the SAMHSA's Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) by amending the Public Health Service Act to include the field of addiction medicine in MFP, to address disparities in and strengthen and diversify the behavioral health workforce and improve mental health and substance use outcomes;
• Federal legislation directing SAMHSA to develop model standards for SUD treatment program licensure in alignment with the program standards set forth in The ASAM Criteria, to establish consistency in states' organization and oversight of addiction treatment programs, and thus, consistency in the quality of addiction care such programs deliver.

Read the letter here.