During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) temporarily relaxed restrictions to best serve people in treatment for substance use disorders (SUD) during social distancing mandates. Changes included allowing longer take-home doses of methadone and buprenorphine rather than requiring patients to come to the clinic every day (for methadone) or weekly (for buprenorphine), as well as relaxed restrictions on telehealth prescribing and treatment. These changes directly and indirectly impacted the approximately 14,500 substance use treatment programs in the United States, but the actual implementation of the changes was poorly understood.

The overarching goals of the project were therefore to:

1. Document the impacts of relaxed restrictions for telemedicine and mHealth
2. Assess the implementation of MAT “take-homes” for people in SUD treatment in rural, underserved, and minority communities in Arizona in the wake of COVID-19.