The National Alliance of Advocates
for Buprenorphine Treatment

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  vs.
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DATA-2000 was written to allow for opioid-based drugs (specially FDA approved for the treatment of opioid addiction) to be used in an office based setting by certified physicians. In 2002 Suboxone/Subutex became the first drugs that physicians could use. Since then, other brands and generic offerings have become available. As a compromise to passage of the law, arbitrary patients limits were enacted, at first limiting doctors to only helping 30 patients concurrently. Many patients and physicians have complained that the law is too restrictive because almost every physician can prescribe potentially addictive medication but once a patient becomes addicted physicians are restricted on how many they can treat for addiction. Plus, there was insufficient evidence to support any rationing of this lifesaving treatment.

The law has been amended three times. The first in August 2005 allowed every certified doctor to prescribe to up to 30 patients regardless of whether they are in a group or sole practice. Until then, a group practice had the same limit as a single practitioner, leaving large HMOs only allowed to treat 30 patients total regardless of how many doctors were certified. The second amendment was signed into law 12/29/2006 and allowed physicians who have had their DATA-2000 certification for more than one year the option of increasing their maximum to 100 patients. This change had a great impact on the number of patients that could get treatment, although the need still far outweighed the supply of providers. In 2016 a third amendment added the framework for Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants to become eligible to prescribe. Also in 2016 the Secretary of HHS changed the regulations so the maximum number of patients was increased to 275 for qualifying doctors. 

Despite aggressive recruitment efforts over the last decade, only about 31,000 of America's 800,000 potential physicians, have become certified and are eligible to prescribe the treatment, but only about 1/3 of them actually do. This shortage in supply of treatment has had negative consequences including high prices for office visits, limited acceptance of insurance, and limited overall access to this lifesaving care.

Reasons to end the limit

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