I am a physician on the front lines of the opioid crisis and I face a daily struggle getting addicted patients an affordable, effective treatment: a medication called buprenorphine. Buprenorphine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. However, some pharmacists are unwilling to fill a prescription for it.
Buprenorphine saves lives when used to treat people addicted to opiates. Without physicians willing to treat addicted patients with buprenorphine, the opioid crisis would be exponentially worse.
Suboxone, which combines buprenorphine and naloxone, was marketed as being safer for patients because the naloxone deters intravenous use. Plain buprenorphine is much less expensive than Suboxone. For patients without medical insurance, it is much more affordable. I prefer to use the least expensive formulative for people trying to manage the cost of recovery, as a large segment of the patients are living day to day on a thin financial thread.
There are clinical scenarios where we prefer to use Suboxone. We prevent abuse of our prescriptions by utilizing on-site urine testing, witnessed specimens, pill counts, oral swabs and physical knowledge of he patient.
It is a dangerous precedent to allow a pharmacist to override a doctor’s prescription and not fill buprenorphine.
In general, pharmacies are a dedicated part of the medical team that is doing great things in the war against opioid addiction. My letter is aimed at only a few pharmacies, which are getting to be a problem for clinicians.
Ira Stockwell, D.O.
Westbrook
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