Obama to announce plans bolstering drug treatment

ATLANTA — President Obama plans to announce steps Tuesday to improve access to drug treatment and ensure millions more Americans have the same level of coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment as they have for other medical problems.

Federal officials shared some of his plans during a conference call Monday ahead of his appearance at the 2016 National Rx Drug Abuse & Heroin Summit Tuesday, billed as the largest national gathering of those seeking to address the scourge of addiction. The summit, which is drawing more than 1,800 top policymakers, researchers and law enforcement professional, is organized by the Eastern Kentucky anti-drug organization Operation UNITE.

Overdoses from opioids such as prescription painkillers and heroin are epidemic, killing around 28,000 people in the United States each year.

Officials said improving “parity,” or comparability, between benefits for substance abuse and mental health services and other medical services is crucial in giving patients access to the care they need. Richard Frank, assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said his agency is finalizing a rule to strengthen substance abuse and mental health services for Americans enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program by making sure they are offered at parity. This would benefit about 24 million people, Frank said.

Obama also plans to sign a memorandum Tuesday creating an inter-agency task force that would, among other things, work to implement and enforce existing parity protections for coverage people get on the job, or plans they purchase under the Affordable Care Act.

“We’re talking about tens of millions of people” affected by these efforts, Frank said.

Other actions Obama plans to announce include:

• A proposed HHS rule to double the current patient limit of 100 for qualified physicians who prescribe buprenorphine treatment for opioid addicts. Earlier this month, HHS provided $94 million in new funding to 271 community health centers to bolster substance abuse services, focusing on medication-assisted treatment such as buprenorphine.

• New grant programs offered by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration — $11 million for states to buy and distribute the fast-acting overdose rescue drug naloxone and train first responders and others in its use; and another $11 million for up to 11 states to expand medication-assisted treatment.

Medication-assisted treatment, when integrated with other types of non-drug therapies, represents “the most effective, evidence-based treatment we have,” Frank said.