Suboxone, heroin addition, and cost-related nonadherence.
The Huffington Post just published an article about the drug addiction programs' failure to use Suboxone - "the best way to wean people off an opioid addiction." It's an older article now, but back in 2011 I published an article with several colleagues from the WSU HPA program on the affordability of Suboxone and related drugs for Medicare enrollees in Washington State.
The median cost of Suboxone in the Medicare prescription drug plans was around $50 a month before the doughnut hole (this data was collected in 2010). If you made it to the doughnut hole, you could be paying as much as $350. Suboxone and the other anti-addiction drugs tended to be on the higher tiers of the formularies, and a lot of the formularies also required prior authorization before these drugs could be dispensed.
The lifesaving potential of Suboxone is being underused, and its abuse potential is very low. We need fewer restrictions, both cost-related and otherwise, to ensure widespread access to this evidence-based treatment option.
