Physicians Approve of Using Telehealth to Treat Opioid Use Disorder

October 17, 2022 - Following a survey, researchers from Yale School of Public Health concluded that the majority of physicians who used telehealth to treat patients with opioid use disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic want to be able to continue using it.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, many restrictions to in-person care led providers to use telehealth in large numbers. With this spike in use, the benefits of telehealth became increasingly apparent. 

To gain insight into how providers felt about telehealth supplementing in-person care, researchers from Yale School of Public Health surveyed 1,141 registered physicians in July 2020, all of whom engaged in telehealth to treat opioid use disorder patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers noted that the number of people in the US who died from a drug overdose in 2021 was 107,622, a 15 percent increase from the previous year.

Of the 1,141 physicians surveyed, only 29 percent used telehealth pre-pandemic. This figure jumped to 66 percent during the early stages of the public health crisis. Also, more than half of the survey participants stated that telehealth efficacy exceeded their expectations, with only 16 percent saying they found it less effective than expected.

Further, six out of seven physicians said they were interested in making telehealth flexibilities permanent. Also, over 75 percent noted they would like to continue telehealth use post-pandemic.

“Recent exposure to telehealth due to the COVID-19 pandemic has promoted the perspective among the physicians surveyed that it is a viable and effective treatment option for patients,” said the study’s lead author Tamara Beetham, a PhD student in health policy and management at YSPH, in a press release. “Findings like these could have major implications for the future of telehealth regulation. Continued flexibility would allow more individuals to access life-saving treatment.”

However, one limitation the researchers noted was that the survey results are not necessarily indicative of all providers treating opioid use disorder.

But the survey is bolstered by studies that have found telehealth effective in expanding access to opioid use disorder treatment and even linked its use to a drop in overdose numbers.

For example, a study published in JAMA Psychiatry in September found that the expansion of telehealth flexibilities led to a decline in the risk of opioid overdoses among Medicare patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. After collecting data and dividing it into two periods, one pre-pandemic and the other mid-pandemic, researchers found that a larger percentage of the patients in the mid-pandemic group received telehealth-enabled treatment and medication for opioid use disorder.

Another study from August found that telehealth, particularly audio-only services, improved access to care among veterans receiving treatment for opioid use disorder. Researchers surmised that a major reason for this was the ease and accessibility associated with virtual care treatments.