The nation’s worsening opioid-overdose epidemic has prompted the AMA to call for the elimination of dose-limit barriers to ensure adequate buprenorphine treatment for patients with opioid use disorder.

Now, patients and physicians encounter strict dose limits set by health insurers and other payers based on drug labels approved by the Food and Drug Administration decades ago, when illicitly manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogues were not a major cause of mortality as it is today. Buprenorphine reduces the risk of fatal overdose, eases opioid withdrawal symptoms and cravings, and helps sustain recovery for patients with an opioid-use disorder.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.