Press release from Mountain Area Health Education Center:
Physicians gather at MAHEC to learn about proper Buprenorphine prescribing for opioid addiction
Contact:
Angele Mainhart
angele.mainhart@mahec.net
828-257-4429Asheville, NC – February 16, 2017
Part of the required training needed to prescribe Buprenorphine, the most recent addition to the pharmacotherapies available to treat opioid dependence, will take place at MAHEC’s Education Building on Thursday, February 16th from 4pm-9pm.Opioid dependence is epidemic in the United States. While progress has been made in training physicians, the gap in providing effective treatment of opioid use disorders continues to widen, moving beyond heroin addicted individuals to a much larger and diverse segment of the population. This increase is predominantly due to an alarming increase in addiction to prescription opioid analgesic medications.
“Deaths from opioids and heroin now surpass deaths from car wrecks, homicide or suicide in this country,” says Dr. Blake Fagan, Assistant Director, MAHEC Family Medicine Residency Program and Chief Education Officer. “It is a national and local crisis.”
Recognizing the impact of this addiction, as well as learning how to treat opioid use disorders, is an important step in combating this ever growing medical problem. Buprenorphine has been placed on Schedule III and is available by prescription from a physician’s office-based practice. To obtain the wavier to prescribe, providers are required to take 8 hours of training. MAHEC offers both online and live in-person educational courses to providers in our community.
“In addition to actually prescribing Buprenorphine from our office, we want to make sure other providers have the same knowledge and training to help combat this problem,” says Dr. Fagan. “We’re thrilled to be part of a collective, region-wide response to this crisis.”
Tonight’s evening course will take place from 4pm-9pm at MAHEC’s Education Building at 121 Hendersonville Rd, Asheville NC 28803.
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