An Evidence-Based Manual for Primary Care and Specialty Practices

This manual is designed to assist practitioners and their staff in supporting an office or clinic-based practice to prescribe medications for opioid use disorder, particularly buprenorphine and XR-naltrexone, as they are available in the community-based setting.

The OBAT initiative includes a variety of provider types from office-based primary care and specialty clinics to addiction medicine programs that provide medications for addiction treatment (MAT) and other services for opioid use disorder (OUD) as part of their general medical practice.

See the NJ FamilyCare/Medicaid Newsletter (Volume 29, Number 18) for details about the initiative and the OBAT standards.

Studies show that MAT is especially beneficial when delivered in an office-based setting or in primary care clinics, such as certified community behavioral health clinics, federally qualified health care centers, and group family medicine practices. When medications for opioid use disorder are integrated into such settings, OUD can be treated as a chronic illness and patients can gain access to medical and addiction services under one roof. Furthermore, the 2020 American Society of Addiction Medicine OUD guidelines state that a patient’s decision to decline psychosocial treatment (or the absence of available psychosocial treatment) should not preclude or delay pharmacotherapy for opioid use disorder. This statement further emphasizes the role that office-based providers have in starting and increasing access to MAT.

This manual refers to prescribing practitioners (e.g., physicians, advanced practice nurses, and physician assistants) and navigators.

To address any questions or to comment in regard to this manual, please contact the Northern NJ MAT Center of Excellence (COE) at coe@njms.rutgers.edu or the Southern NJ MAT Center of Excellence at southernnjcoe@rowan.edu. Please also visit our websites at bit.ly/mat-coe and snjmatcoe.org.

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