Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act

The US Department of Labor has a new web-based tool to help realize the hope for parity in coverage for addiction with other health conditions. To use the online question and complaint filing tool, go here and choose from the options under Request Assistance from a Benefits Advisor. You can also use the Parity Toolkit to advocate for your rights and benefits under the law.

Faces & Voices Community Listening Forum Toolkit

Faces & Voices of Recovery developed this Community Listening Forum Toolkit after hosting four Community Listening Forums in 2010 and 2011 with recovery advocates in Maryland, Florida, Oregon and Texas. You'll find everything you need to organize one in your community to raise awareness about important issues and develop support for taking action. Check it out here.

Nyswander Dole Award Winner, Ed Johnson

Please join us in congratulating Southeast ATTC South Carolina Program Manager, Ed Johnson, who has been selected as one of the 2012 recipients of the Nyswander-Dole Award by the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD). This is the first time that an individual from South Carolina has been chosen to receive this award. The award is named after Drs. Marie Nyswander and Vincent Dole, who pioneered the use of medication in the treatment of opioid dependence and is affectionately referred to as the “Marie Award.” The award, which is presented bi-annually, was first presented in 1983 to recognize extraordinary work and service in the opioid treatment field. Individuals are nominated by their state opioid treatment providers group and selected by the Awards Committee of the AATOD Board of Directors. A maximum of eight recipients are selected. The award will be presented at the Awards Banquet during the 2012 AATOD Conference “Recovery for Patients, Families and Communities” which will be held April 21-25, 2012 in Las Vegas Nevada.

Prior to joining the staff at Southeast ATTC, Ed was the Program Administrator for the Opioid Treatment Program at Charleston Center (Charleston County Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services) located in Charleston, South Carolina for the previous ten years and represented South Carolina on the AATOD Board of Directors. He worked with this population and with individuals with substance use disorders and HIV disease for over for over twenty years.

Training of Trainers: Provider’s Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals

December 13-15, Charlotte, North Carolina

Location: TBA

The curriculum is intended to provide both practitioners and administrators involved in substance abuse treatment with: Increased familiarity with the issues and barriers faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in need of substance use disorder-related services; Knowledge about the interaction between LGBT issues and substance use and abuse; Enhanced ability to offer sensitive, affirmative, culturally relevant, and effective treatment to LGBT clients in substance use disorders treatment.

For more information and registration, contact:

email: southeast@ATTCnetwork.org

Tel: 404-752-1016

Journal Article: Opioid Addiction and Abuse in Primary Care Practice: A Comparison of Methadone and Buprenorphine as Treatment Options

Authored by Jean Bonhomme, MD, MPH; Ruth S. Shim, MD, MPH; Richard Gooden, MBA; Dawn Tyus, MS; George Rust, MD.

This article will be featured in the November issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association.

Opioid abuse and addiction have increased in frequency in the U.S. over the past twenty years. In 2009, an estimated 5.3 million persons used opioid medications non-medically within the past month, 200,000 used heroin, and approximately 9.6 percent of African Americans used an illicit drug. Racial and ethnic minorities experience disparities in availability and access to mental health care, including substance use disorders.

Primary care practitioners are often called upon to differentiate between appropriate, medically-indicated opioid use in pain management versus inappropriate abuse or addiction. Racial and ethnic minority populations tend to favor primary care treatment settings over specialty mental health settings. Recent therapeutic advances allow patients requiring specialized treatment for opioid abuse and addiction to be managed in primary care settings. The Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 enables qualified physicians with readily available short-term training to treat opioid-dependent patients with buprenorphine in an office-based setting, potentially making primary care physicians active partners in the diagnosis and treatment of opioid use disorders.

Methadone and buprenorphine are effective opioid replacement agents for maintenance and/or detoxification of opioid addicted individuals. However, restrictive federal regulations and stigmatization of opioid addiction and treatment have limited the availability of methadone. The opioid partial agonist-antagonist buprenorphine/naloxone combination has proven an effective alternative. This article reviews the literature on differences between buprenorphine and methadone regarding availability, efficacy, safety, side-effects, and dosing, identifying resources for enhancing the effectiveness of medication-assisted recovery through coordination with behavioral/psychological counseling, embedded in the context of recovery-oriented systems of care.

Raising Low 'Patient Activation' Rates Among Hispanic Immigrants May Equal Expanded Coverage in Reducing Access Disparities

Health Affairs, Vol. 30, No. 10, October 2011

Peter J. Cunningham, Judith H. Hibbard, Claire B. Gibbons

There is a growing consensus that activating consumers to become better managers of their health is an essential component of U.S. health care reform. The researchers measured how activated blacks, whites, and Hispanics are—that is, how confident, skillful, and knowledgeable they are about taking an active role in improving their health and health care. They found that patient activation among blacks and Hispanics was low, relative to that of whites. For example, 24.8 percent of Hispanics were at the highest level of patient activation, compared to 39.5 percent of blacks and 45.3 percent of whites. Among Hispanic immigrants, low acculturation and lack of familiarity with the U.S. health care system contribute to low activation. The findings indicate that increasing activation levels among Hispanic immigrants may be as important as expanding insurance coverage in reducing disparities in unmet medical need.

Access to this article is available at the Health Affairs Web site.

The New Frontier: The Use of Medication in the Treatment of Substance Use Disorders

October 11, Columbia, SC

This training is designed to provide addiction and healthcare professionals with factual, evidence-based information on the various medications currently in use and being investigated for the treatment of substance use disorders. Due to the dramatic increase in the misuse of pain medications, particular emphasis will be given to the various medications used in the treatment of opioid dependence.

Sponsored by DAODAS, Southeast Addiction Technology Transfer Center, and Southern Consortium Node of the Clinical Trials Network (CTN) of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Registration deadline is October 7.