Adoption of telemedicine services by substance abuse treatment facilities in the U.S.

Uscher-Pines, Lori; Cantor, Jonathan; Huskamp, Haiden A.; Mehrotra, Ateev; Busch, Alisa; Barnett, Michael

OBJECTIVE: To describe trends in licensed substance use treatment facilities' adoption of telemedicine and how adoption varies across local factors, including county-level drug overdose rates, urbanicity measures, and state policy laws. METHODS: We analyzed data (2016–2019) from the National Directory of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Treatment Facilities. Our main outcome was telemedicine use by a treatment facility. We also captured independent variables from other datasets, including estimated county-level drug poisoning deaths and state-level telemedicine policies. We estimated a multivariable logistic regression model to determine which facility characteristics were associated with offering telemedicine. RESULTS: From 2016 to 2019, an average of 12,334 treatment facilities were included. During this period, the unadjusted proportion of facilities offering telemedicine grew from 13.5% to 17.4% (p < 0.001). In adjusted models, rural location; offering multiple treatment settings; offering pharmacotherapy; and serving both adult and pediatric patients were associated with greater telemedicine adoption (p < 0.05 for all comparisons). DISCUSSION: Use of telemedicine is increasing steadily among substance use disorder (SUD) treatment facilities; however, uptake is uneven and relatively low. As such, telemedicine may be an underutilized tool to expand access to care for patients with SUDs.