To Test a Payer/Treatment Agency Intervention to Increase Use of Buprenorphine

A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering and Oregon Health & Science University will test whether clinician training and the use of organizational change strategies are sufficient for disseminating an evidence-based practice (EBP), or if changes to both organizational systems and payer policy results in greater EBP use. Demonstrating the role of payment policy as a driver in the adoption of evidence-based practices could provide a contribution to dissemination and implementation science. This study will employ an intervention that was developed through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded Advancing Recovery (AR) program. In AR, payer/treatment organization partnerships in 12 states collaborated to remove systemic barriers to the adoption of EBPs such as medication-assisted treatment for substance abuse disorders. The resulting "AR Framework" of payer and organizational change strategies will be tested against its ability to increase the use of the addiction medication buprenorphine as compared to organizational change strategies alone. Buprenorphine is an EBP for treating people addicted to heroin or opioid-based pain medications for non-medical use. Buprenorphine has experienced low adoption rates and is not a standard part of addiction treatment. In Ohio, the location of the study, deaths to due to accidental overdoses of opioids has increased by 304% over the past decade and surpassed auto accidents as the leading cause of accidental deaths in 2006. Ohio was selected for the study because of the public health significance of opioid abuse and because each county in Ohio acts as a stand-alone payer, offering 48 unique eligible payer environments. This trial will develop a deeper understanding of the role payers and treatment organizations play in implementing and disseminating EBPs and will focus on the public health issue of rising opioid abuse.