Opportunities to Address the Opioid Epidemic in the Medicaid Population

Jennifer E. Moore, PhD, RN, FAAN

The Institute for Medicaid Innovation’s recently published Health Affairs blog post, “Opioid Crisis in Medicaid:  Saving Mothers and Babies,” highlights research and clinical opportunities to address the epidemic.  The opportunities include:

• Conduct medical research to evaluate causes of opioid use focused on pregnant and postpartum women;
• Develop evidence-based interventions designed to address opioid use disorders amongst pregnant and postpartum women and infants;
• Utilize opioid treatment programs as a replacement for criminal penalties, prosecution, and incarceration of pregnant and postpartum women;
• Create a streamlined and efficient enrollment process for pregnant women; and
• Expand workforce development to increase the number of clinicians trained to prescribe and provide MAT, including nurse-midwives.

The blog post builds off of last year’s opioid summit and two comprehensive reports that were released as part of the event.  To view an archived video of the summit and access the resources, click here.