Buprenorphine is an effective treatment for reducing mortality risk in people with opioid use disorder but remains underutilized.The proportion of new buprenorphine prescriptions for opioid use disorder that were never dispensed or filled increased from 2020 to 2024, according to this retrospective cohort study.Patients with abandoned prescriptions were younger, more often Hispanic, more likely to have commercial insurance, and had higher pharmacy deductibles than those dispensed buprenorphine.
The proportion of new buprenorphine prescriptions for opioid use disorder (OUD) that were never dispensed or filled increased from 2020 to 2024, according to a retrospective cohort study.
Among over 1,400 patients with commercial insurance or Medicare Advantage plans, 25.8% had abandoned buprenorphine prescriptions, defined as those not filled by patients or rejected by insurers or pharmacies, reported Xinyi Jiang, PhD, of the CDC's Division of Overdose Prevention, and co-authors in a research letter in JAMA Network Open.
The proportion of first prescriptions being abandoned increased from 19% in 2020 to 37% in 2024 (P for trend=0.02).
"Over 1 in 3 patients' first buprenorphine prescriptions were abandoned in 2024, representing a missed opportunity for treatment initiation and engagement," Jiang and team noted.
