Impact of Social Distancing Measures, Expansion of Telemedicine for Buprenorphine Prescribing, and Health Insurance Payor on Access to Buprenorphine During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19-related social distancing has resulted in disruptions in the delivery of health care. Simultaneously, the synergistic epidemic between the opioid overdose crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in major regulatory changes to ease access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) via telemedicine. This study seeks to address the priorities of NIDA by analyzing a dataset with >90% of all US prescriptions to examine the time-varying impact of COVID-19-related social distancing, MOUD prescribing guideline changes, and health insurance on access to buprenorphine.