News & Updates — Webinar

Update, 3/19/2020: FORE has posted an Opinion Letter with a legal analysis of four hypothetical scenarios for prescribing buprenorphine for OUD during the COVID-19 public health emergency. You can find it in our Resources section with other updated guidance from Federal agencies. The recorded webinar and slides are also now available for download below.

As the nation rapidly evolves its efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, FORE has been in contact with our grantees and others on the frontlines in an effort to identify the most pressing challenges in maintaining access to opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment and recovery services.

We hope that by generating this information, and helping to identify solutions, we can provide some broad assistance during a time of such uncertainty.

We will be using our website and LinkedIn page to draw attention to unmet needs and the strategies that health care organizations, government agencies, and community-based organizations are using to confront them.

We invite you to look at our Resources page for valuable information — including recently produced guidance from our California Bridge grantee at the Public Health Institute. This guidance outlines strategies for serving OUD patients who face serious risks pursuing face-to-face care during this pandemic.

Working with FORE, Dr. Hannah Snyder, Co-Principal Investigator of CA Bridge, will conduct a national webinar this Thursday, March 19 at 3pm EST. The webinar will highlight their guidance on how we can think creatively about using telemedicine and other tools to reduce barriers to access and ensure support is available to those in recovery as in-person meetings are temporarily limited. In addition, we will be joined by Jodi Manz, MSW, Project Director for Chronic and Vulnerable Populations at the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) and Daniel McClughen, Esq., Associate at DCBA Law & Policy, to answer your questions concerning evolving regulations and newly issued guidance around MOUD during the pandemic.

If you have not seen it already, we also highly recommend a recent post on the blog of Nora Volkow, M.D., Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which highlights the added risks populations with substance use disorder face. Additionally, new SAMHSA guidance for opioid treatment programs was released yesterday.

We will be working with partners to continue to develop and share information in response to pressing questions related to maintaining access to treatment during this time. Please reach out with questions and/or resources that would benefit others so we can share them.