Buprenorphine Telehealth Treatment Initiation and Follow-Up During COVID-19

Tele-buprenorphine—even when delivered primarily via audio—presents an important opportunity to expand treatment access. Research about telehealth conducted during COVID-19 has shown that individuals who are Black, Latinx/Hispanic, older, lower income, and female are less likely to use video-based telehealth services. Efforts aimed at improving OUD treatment access by telehealth which require a video interface may inadvertently perpetuate existing inequities in treatment access by geography, race, and income. Longer-term outcomes research is needed to evaluate audio-only versus video-based telehealth and in-person visits, but these data show that it is a promising low-barrier strategy to improve treatment access.