A JAMA Medical News & Perspectives published June 5, 2018 discusses emergency departments who have engaged in helping with opiate addiction and the challenges as very few communities have adequate resources. The 8 hour course to prescribe Suboxone, the paperwork, and the limits on the number of prescriptions is a problem as well as the stigma to patients.
Herring pointed out that physicians do not have to complete the buprenorphine course to use the drug to treat withdrawal symptoms in the ED. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) makes an exception called the “3-day rule”: Physicians who have not been registered to prescribe buprenorphine can administer a day’s worth of the medication to relieve withdrawal symptoms for up to 3 days while the patient awaits placement in a treatment program. The problem is that half of the states don’t recognize that exception.