Resource Center: Physician and staff training

This is a training package developed by the Buprenorphine Awareness Blending Team to create awareness about buprenorphine among non-physician addiction professionals.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) provides this website so that physicians can improve the deliver and financing of prevention, treatment and recovery support services to patients.

The California Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) website provides information and materials for buprenorphine treatment providers, including screening tools and sample consent and patient agreement forms, and provides links to other helpful resources.

The crisis of opioid addiction in America has been fueled by the diversion of prescription pain pills and the emergence of pure and inexpensive heroin. Until recently, benefits of and access to therapy were limited. This situation changed in 2003 with Food and Drug Administration approval of buprenorphine for the office-based treatment of opioid dependence. Now armed with a potent drug, primary care physicians can treat addicted patients in their own practice and from their own neighborhood, but first we must overcome deficiencies in our training and personal biases about addicts and what they need. This a report of one doctor’s progress.

PCSS-B is a free mentoring service funded by SAMHSA and coordinated by ASAM. The PCSS-B can match you with a physician mentor from your local area with whom you can discuss practice and treatment issues with him/her.

This is a CME course designed to introduce and demonstrate basic motivational interviewing techniques for primary care.

Your staff will be assisting you with many of the tasks essential to conducting in-office buprenorphine treatment. Therefore, staff members need a firm grasp of the principles of addiction treatment and corresponding clinical skills and an attitude conducive to working with this patient population. The staff's attitudes will affect the way they treat patients, thus influencing the outcome of treatment. Before starting office-based buprenorphine treatment, you may wish to conduct formal training with your staff. The brief guidelines below can help you structure your training.

These case studies are intended to serve as a supplement to the buprenorphine training. Areas covered include: patient assessment, induction, and maintenance. These cases can be used free of charge.

This CME course instructs physicians on some subtleties of buprenorphine treatment that can minimize the risk of the patient being harmed either by an adverse drug effect or by relapsing to opioid abuse.

This is an online buprenorphine training course supported by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Includes supplemental case studies.