Introductory
Workshop Session
David Kan, MD, DFASAM
Medical Director
Bright Heart Health
Miriam Komaromy, MD, FACP,DFASAM
Professor of Medicine
University of New Mexico
Aaron Greenblatt, MD
Assistant Professor
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Brad Bachman
Manager, State Advocacy and Government Relations
American Society of Addiction Medicine
Telemedicine is increasingly popular as a method to deliver addiction treatment. Use of video technology allows improved access to specialized care, particularly for patients living in rural and underserved areas. Prescribing medication treatment for opioid use disorder through telemedicine is also enhancing our ability to address the opioid epidemic. However, this is an arena with rapidly changing regulation and reimbursement. During this session, we will examine factors that need to be considered when delivering telemedicine services for addiction treatment. The broader concept of telehealth encompasses a wide variety of other health related activities, such as web-based continuing professional education; electronic patient reminders, education, monitoring, and access to personal health information; and remote consultation between medical providers. The ECHO model is an increasingly popular approach that combines several features of telehealth in order to provide case-based telementoring, continuing professional education, and expansion of healthcare workforce capacity. We will also examine in this session the rapid expansion of the use of ECHO to address the opioid epidemic and other addiction medicine arenas in the US and internationally.