The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will revise 42 CFR part 8 to make permanent some regulatory flexibilities for Opioid Treatment Programs (OTPs) granted under the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), and to expand access to care for people with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). Specifically, SAMHSA will propose making permanent those flexibilities pertaining to unsupervised doses of methadone and also initiation of buprenorphine via telemedicine. To expand access to care, SAMHSA will also review admission criteria, particularly rules that may limit timely access to treatment in an OTP. To achieve this, sections of 42 CFR part 8 will require updating. SAMHSA’s changes will impact roughly 1900 opioid treatment programs and state opioid treatment authorities.

In response to the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which removed the requirement to obtain a waiver in order to prescribe certain schedule III-V medications for the treatment of OUD, SAMHSA issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking on Feb. 13, 2023, (88 FR 9221) calling for additional public comment on SAMHSA’s plans to remove reference to the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 ( DATA  2000-Waiver) from 42 CFR part 8.