Evidence-based Methadone Treatment: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic
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Evidence-based Methadone Treatment: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Recorded: Thursday, April 13, 2023 to Sunday, April 16, 2023
On-Demand Session
Overview
This 75-minute on-demand session from the ASAM 54th Annual Conference addresses regulatory changes and their impact on clinical outcomes for patients on methadone for OUD.
In the US, methadone for opioid use disorder is restricted to highly regulated opioid treatment programs (OTPs). During the COVID-19 pandemic, SAMHSA temporarily relaxed certain regulations, including flexibility around observed dosing requirements. In December 2022, SAMHSA proposed an array of permanent changes to increase access to treatment and promote patient-centered care. This session will review these regulatory changes and their impact on clinical outcomes for patients on methadone for OUD, centering our discussion on the lived patient experience.
The target audience for this introductory level session includes physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, other clinicians, researchers, residents, fellows, students, and counselors.
This session addresses the following ACGME Competencies: Medical Knowledge, Systems-based Practice
This session addresses the following IOM Competencies:Provide patient-centered care, Employ evidence-based practice
Learning Objectives
Upon completion, learners will be able to:
- Describe pre-pandemic U.S. methadone treatment infrastructure, how federal and state agencies regulated treatment, how these regulations impacted treatment access, and how this treatment contrasted with that of other countries.
- Summarize federal COVID-19 methadone treatment regulation relaxations and preliminary evidence of positive outcomes arising from them.
- List actionable steps U.S. addiction treatment providers can take to increase methadone treatment access through both medical practice and advocacy.
Registration Rates
| Rate Description | Rate |
| ASAM Member | $29 |
| Non-Member | $39 |
| Associate Member | $19 |
| Resident Member* | $19 |
| Student Member* | $19 |
*Residents, Fellows-in-training, Interns, and Students must join ASAM to receive a discounted registration rate. Click here to become an ASAM member. National and Chapter membership dues apply. There is no charge for Students to become a Member, but verification of student status is required.
Membership Question? Call ASAM at 1.301.656.3920, email us, or view the ASAM website for more information.
Refunds & Cancellations
All ASAM e-Learning Center refund requests must be made in writing to education@asam.org within 90 days of purchase. Those requesting refunds for courses that are in progress will receive partial refunds or e-Learning Center credit. Automatic full refunds will be made for any course with a live-course component that has been cancelled.
Registration Deadline: 05/15/2026
Session Instructions
- Click on the Contents tab to watch the on-demand recording.
- Click Complete Post Test to answer multiple choice questions. Participants will have 10 attempts to pass and must answer 4 out of 5 questions correctly.
- Click Complete Evaluation to provide valuable activity feedback. Scroll down on all questions as there may be answer options that expand past the size of the window.
- Click the button Claim Medical Credits in the box titled Claim Credits & Certificate. Choose the type of credit and click submit. Click the button View/Print Certificate to save or print your certificate. You can view/print your certificate at any time by visiting the ASAM eLearning Center, clicking Dashboard, and clicking Transcript/Achievements.
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Abby Coulter
Special Projects Coordinator/Methadone Liaison
North Carolina Survivors Union/National Survivors Union
Abby Coulter is the methadone liaison for National Survivors Union (NSU), the United States national drug users union, and a member of the NSU Methadone Reform & Advocacy working group. In 2011, she and her partner founded MAT Support & Awareness (MATSA), a mutual aid, support, advocacy, and educational organization by and for people on methadone and buprenorphine. She recently served on the planning committee for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Methadone Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder: Examining Federal Regulations and Laws workshop, an event co-sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. She is a co-author of “The methadone manifesto: treatment experiences and policy recommendations by methadone patient activists,” a 2022 editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health by NSU members in collaboration with their academic partners, as well as the co-author of a commentary published in the International Journal of Drug Policy by union members and collaborators in 2021 on community driven research led by people who use drugs. Abby herself is a person on methadone, who has been a methadone patient advocate and activist for 21 years, advocating for people on methadone in her home state of West Virginia, throughout the United States, and internationally. Her own lived experience as a pregnant person using drugs and a pregnant and parenting person in methadone treatment is what led her to life as a methadone advocate and drug user human rights activist.
Caty Simon
Leadership Team Member/Director of Narrative Development/Co-Executive Director
National Survivors Union/NC Survivors Union/Whose Corner Is It Anyway
Caty Simon has spent 20 years in the low-income rights, psychiatric survivors’ rights, sex workers’ rights, and drug users union movements. She is a leadership team member of National Survivors Union (NSU), the United States national drug users union. Caty is also a founding co-executive director of Whose Corner Is It Anyway, a Western MA harm reduction, mutual aid, and organizing group by and for low-income, street, and survival sex workers who use opioids and/or stimulants and/or experience housing insecurity. She is the Director of Narrative Development at NC Survivors Union, the flagship affiliate group of NSU, leading Narcofeminism Storyshare, a project disrupting stereotypical narratives about people who use drugs through autobiographical story development. From 2013 to 2020 Caty was co-editor of Tits and Sass, a seminal media outlet by and for sex workers which was featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Jezebel, Gawker, and the New Inquiry, to name a few. She is first author of a commentary in the International Journal of Drug Policy on union members’ experiences as drug user organizers doing community driven research (CDR) and an editorial in a health justice and overdose crisis supplemental issue of the American Journal of Public Health, “The methadone manifesto: treatment experiences and policy recommendations from methadone patient activists.” She has extensive experience as a research and intervention consultant representing people with living experience of drug use and drug treatment, and has worked with the Yale Program of Addiction Medicine, the COVID-19 and Substance Use Data Collaborative, the Baystate Hospital Emergency Department, and the University of Kentucky’s Department of Behavioral Science, among others. Caty recently sat on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s harm reduction steering committee, defining harm reduction and its principles, precepts, and metrics for the federal agency.
Ruth A. Potee
MD, FASAM
Dr. Ruth Potee is a board certified Family Physician and Addiction Medicine physician who works in western Massachusetts. She attended Wellesley College, Yale University School of Medicine and did her residency at Boston University where she remained an assistant professor of Family Medicine for eight years. She is currently the Medical Director for the Franklin County House of Corrections, the Director of Addiction Services for Behavioral Health Network, and the medical director for the Pioneer Valley Regional School District as well as the medical director the Opioid Task Force of Franklin County and the North Quabbin Region. She was named Franklin County Doctor of the Year by the Massachusetts Medical Society in 2015.
Dr. Zoe Weinstein
MD, MS
Zoe M. Weinstein MD, MS is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, a graduate of Boston University’s Addiction Medicine Fellowship and board certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine. Her current clinical work and research are focused on long-term Office-Based Addiction Treatment (OBAT) with buprenorphine, and the development and evaluation of inpatient addiction consult services. She has been the director of Boston Medical Center’s Addiction Consult Service since July 2016.
CME, CE, CEU and Other Credit Types
ACCME Accreditation Statement
The American Society of Addiction Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
AMA Credit Designation Statement
The American Society of Addiction Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of 1.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals
This activity has been approved by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider, for educational credits. NAADAC Provider #295, ASAM is responsible for all aspects of the programming.
California Association for Drug/Alcohol Educators (CAADE)
This educational program is approved by CAADE: #CP40 999 1225.
California Association of DUI Treatment Centers (CADTP)
This educational program is approved by CADTP: #205.
California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP)
This educational program is approved by CCAPP: #OS-20-330-1224.
Continuing Education Credits (CEUs)
Non-physician participants will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and an online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants should submit his/her certificate of attendance to their professional organization/institute.
Maintenance of Certification / Continuing Certification Program
American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM)
The American Board of Preventive Medicine (ABPM) has approved this activity for 1.25 credits towards ABPM MOC Part II requirements.
American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA)
This activity contributes to the CME component of the American Board of Anesthesiology’s redesigned Maintenance of Certification in Anesthesiology TM (MOCA®) program, known as MOCA 2.0®.
American Board of Pediatrics (ABP)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the activity, with individual assessments of the participant and feedback to the participant, enables the participant to earn 1.25 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABP MOC credit.
American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn 1.25 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine’s (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credits.
American Board of Surgery (ABS)
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME and/or Self-Assessment requirements of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit.
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN)
Successful completion of this CME activity can be used to satisfy the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology’s (ABPN) CME requirement for Maintenance of Certification program.
American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM)
Successful completion of this activity can be used to satisfy the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) for Tmoc as credits towards ABAM LLSA Part II requirements.
Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC)
Royal College Fellows can use participation in Accredited Continuing Medical Education to earn Section 3 Credits.
Disclosure Information
In accordance with disclosure policies of ASAM and the ACCME, the effort is made to ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in all CME/CE activities. These policies include mitigating all possible relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies for the Planning Committees and Presenters. All activity Planning Committee members and Presenters have disclosed relevant financial relationship information. The ASAM CE Committee has reviewed these disclosures and determined that the relationships are not inappropriate in the context of their respective presentations and are not inconsistent with the educational goals and integrity of the activity.
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