Medicaid and opioid use disorder

MACPAC Meets

Members of the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission met last week in Washington, D.C. The following is MACPAC’s own summary of the meeting: MACPAC’s September 2026 meeting began with a discussion around community engagement (CE) requirements in Medicaid. The 2025 Budget Reconciliation Act established CE requirements and delegates to the Secretary the authority to set certain standards and procedures that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) addressed in the interim final rule with comment (IFC), issued on June 1, 2026. Staff summarized key IFC provisions, including individuals subject to CE, exceptions and exclusions from CE, state [...]

Telehealth May Help Medicaid Patients With Opioid-Related Addictions

When access to buprenorphine treatment became available to Medicaid beneficiaries in response to the COVID-19 crisis, patients who obtained such treatment via telehealth were more likely to remain under treatment for their disorder than those who received similar care through physician offices. This new finding, reported in the JAMA Network, suggests that prescribing buprenorphine treatment through telehealth may be beneficial to patients and should remain an option for patients and providers after the COVID-19-inspired policy, extended after the formal end of the public health emergency, expires at the end of 2024, as currently scheduled. While the study found that patients [...]