A dose of methadone is dispensed at Operation Recovery's clinic in Price on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.If you were to receive a diagnosis of diabetes, you’d probably waste little time finding treatment. After all, diabetes isin the United States, and treatment is critical and often life-saving. But imagine that your only option is to visit a doctor who lives more than 100 miles away, has limited hours and will only dispense medication to you at the clinic — one day at a time.
Why is methadone so difficult for patients to access? One major reason is that doctors, including addiction specialists like us, cannot prescribe it to treat addiction. Any patient seeking methadone for addiction treatment must receive it at a federally-licensed opioid treatment program . While these programs can be therapeutic for their participants, the bar for participation is exceedingly high.
Critics of M-OTAA say that the relatively complex properties of methadone and the wrap-around services provided by opioid treatment programs are reasons to keep the medication confined to specialized centers. While methadone can be dangerous if used inappropriately, addiction specialists like us are well-trained to safely prescribe the medication.