Anthem fights opioid addiction: Extension for Community Health Care Outcomes and Quality Medication-Assisted Therapy

Extension for Community Health Care Outcomes (ECHO)

Opioid overdose rates continue to rise. With the medication assisted treatment, you can help save lives! Join one of several video tele-consultative ECHO learning communities nationwide and participate with other clinicians learning about medication-assisted treatment for individuals with opioid disorders. For more information, visit the ECHO website at https://echo.unm.edu.

 

Benefits of participating include:

• Addiction treatment training.
• Free continuing education credits.
• Opportunity to receive expert input on your (de-identified) patient cases.
• Access to a virtual learning community for treatment guidelines, tools and patient resources.
• Opportunity to ask questions and get a variety of support from specialists.

 

Quality Medication-Assisted Therapy (MAT)

To help ensure members have access to comprehensive evidence-based care, Anthem is committed to helping its providers double the number of members who receive behavioral health services as part of MAT for opioid addiction.

 

When treating patients with opioid use disorder, it is considered best practice to offer and arrange evidence-based treatment. This usually consists of MAT with naltrexone, buprenorphine or, in some plans, methadone in combination with behavioral therapies. Behavioral therapies focused on medication adherence and relapse prevention can improve MAT outcomes and improve other social determinants of health, including development of an enhanced social support network in recovery.

 

For more information

For more information about what is considered best practice for medication-assisted treatment, please read the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s National Practice Guideline for the Use of Medications in the Treatment of Addiction Involving Opioid Use.

 

You can also contact Jennifer Tripp by email at jennifer.tripp@anthem.com for more information about the ECHO and MAT programs.