BIDEN EASES PRESCRIPTION RESTRICTIONS ON OPIOID TREATMENT — The Biden administration will make it easier for doctors and nurses to prescribe buprenorphine, a common opioid addiction treatment, months after scrapping a last-minute Trump-era policy similarly aimed at expanding access.

A new notice released by the Administration today  exempts many health care providers from a two-decade-old rule mandating they receive one day’s training before they could prescribe the treatment.

The federal government closely monitors providers’ prescriptions of buprenorphine because it’s one of the only drugs in the country that has a patient cap. Drug treatment advocates have long argued the requirements around buprenorphine prescriptions were improper given the scope of the drug crisis.

Some drug policy groups had pushed the administration to eliminate all restrictions on buprenorphine prescribing, but Tom Coderre, acting assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, told reporters that would require an act of Congress.

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