Payers Can Play a Role in Encouraging Naloxone Coprescribing

To prevent deaths and injuries related to prescription opioid misuse, research has shown that coprescribing the overdose-treatment drug naloxone when patients on chronic pain-management therapy receive high doses of opioids can make a big difference. Yet federal data show that less than 1% of patients who should be prescribed naloxone with their opioid medications obtain a prescription for it — a rate that managed care entities can play a role in changing, according to a new paper from the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Addiction Advisory Group.

The AMCP Addiction Advisory Group in 2019 polled AMCP payer members, addiction treatment providers and managed behavioral health organizations, with the goal of understanding and evaluating “trends in treatment, coverage, policies, and needs associated with providing health services to patients with substance use disorders.” One particularly notable finding was that 80% of the managed behavioral health organizations and 47% of AMCP payer members who responded to the survey encouraged naloxone coprescribing in patients at high risk of overdose, but “no organizations required coprescribing.”