FAIRBORN — Licensed physicians, certified nurse practitioners and physician assistants who want to prescribe buprenorphine for office-based treatment of opioid use disorder can attend free waiver training Dec. 19-20 at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.

The Ohio DATA 2000 One-and-a-Half-Day Waiver Training will begin 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 19 in room 120 White Hall, at the Boonshoft School of Medicine. The second day of training will be held 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 20, in the same classroom with an implementation training session.

“In Ohio, unintentional drug overdoses are the leading cause of accidental death,” said S. Bruce Binder, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor and interim chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine. “By expanding the number of trained physicians, nurses and physician assistants who can provide medication-assisted treatment of opioid addiction, we can more effectively address the opioid epidemic in southwestern Ohio.”

Buprenorphine treatment, which is used in medication-assisted treatment of opioid dependency, is limited in Ohio because it requires prescribers to have a unique Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) license. To prescribe or dispense buprenorphine, licensed physicians, certified nurse practitioners and physician assistants must qualify and apply for a waiver under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 (DATA 2000).

The waiver training is hosted by the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine as part of an $80,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The grant was awarded in July 2017 for medication-assisted treatment of opioid addiction.

The training is provided and funded by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services’ 21st Century Cures Act grant. The act, passed by Congress and signed into law in December 2016, makes new funding available to states to combat the prescription opioid and heroin crisis through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The eight-hour section of the training is provided by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). The course covers all medications and treatments for opioid use disorder. The course is supported by SAMHSA. It meets the requirements needed to obtain the waiver to prescribe buprenorphine in office-based treatment of opioid use disorder.

The four-hour section of the training is provided by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. This section will cover topics on DEA documentation, motivational interviewing, low dose prescribing, treatment referral and other areas related to medication-assisted treatment.

The training is free, and in some cases a stipend is provided. For more information and to register for the training, go to http://bit.ly/2zsicN4.

“By attending this waiver training, physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants will be able to apply for a DEA-X license, which allows them to prescribe buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction,” said Binder, co-principal investigator of the HRSA grant.

After the course, physicians can submit an application for their DEA DATA Waiver. Certified nurse practitioners and physician assistants must complete an additional 16 hours of online training after they attend the course. Then, they may submit an application for their DEA DATA Waiver.

F. Stuart Leeds, M.D., assistant professor of family medicine and co-principal investigator of the HRSA grant, encourages clinicians to take advantage of this training, even if they do not intend to prescribe buprenorphine for their own patients.

“The educational objectives will be of benefit to any primary care provider who manages a broad range of patients, especially including those patients who may be receiving medication-assisted treatment from another provider,” Leeds said. “The training also provides eight credits of Category I CME.”

For any additional questions, contact Mary Crane at [email protected].