Evaluation of a Program Designed to Support Implementation of Prescribing Medication for Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care Practices

Purpose: Offering medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in primary care can increase access to effective opioid use disorder treatment and help address the US opioid crisis. We describe a primary care office-based opioid treatment program and addiction consultation service model designed to support small, rural clinics to increase their capacity for MOUD.

Methods: This is an evaluation of an intervention to increase clinic capacity to offer MOUD. The intervention consists of a standardized curriculum, addiction medicine consultants, practice facilitation, and financial incentives. Fifteen Colorado primary care practices participated from January 2022 through January 2023. Primary outcomes included overall change in the number of active buprenorphine prescriptions and implementation of MOUD milestones before and after the intervention.

Results: The mean number of active buprenorphine prescriptions in the 3 months preceding the intervention (baseline) increased from 2.1 (SD = 7.7) to 11.3 (SD = 11.2) at 13 months. Adjusted means from the Poisson model demonstrated significant improvement over time (P <.001). Mean implementation of MOUD milestones ranged from 23% to 40% at baseline and grew to 84% to 93% by the end of the program (P <.001).

Conclusions: This model supported primary care practices that were initially doing little to no MOUD prescribing, to prescribe at significantly higher levels by the end of the program. This scalable model for addiction consultation in primary care settings illustrates how education and support to clinical teams can help practices makes changes, especially those with limited MOUD experience.