Resources for Professionals

Local Resources

Opioid Prescription Guidelines for Physicians

The Prescribe Safe initiative was created by health care facilities, law enforcement, and local physicians in response to concerns about prescription medication misuse in our county. Prescribe Safe is meant to guide, educate, and provide resources for our local physicians and patients in the safe use of prescription medications and promote safe and effective pain management in Santa Barbara County.

Lectures and Trainings

Dr. Paul Erickson, MD, Cottage Health Director of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine and Santa Barbara Opioid Safety Coalition member, discusses the neurology behind chronic pain, opioids, and addiction.

Internal Medicine and Addiction Specialist, Joseph Frawley, MD, presents research that shows a connection between pain, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and addiction, and shares his thoughts about what can be done about it.

More Resources for Prescribers

Follow up regularly with patients to determine whether opioids are meeting treatment goals and whether opioids can be reduced to lower dosage or discontinued. These resources on carefully managing Dosage Tapering can help:

Brought to you by the Partnership to End Addiction, Search and Rescue is a prescriber education campaign operating on a grant from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the sole purpose of providing healthcare professionals with the tools and resources they need to help patients with prescription drug misuse, abuse and addiction.
> Download the Fact Sheet for Prescribers

Youth Mental Health First Aid 2023 Trainings

Santa Barbara County professionals who work with youth ages 12-18 are encouraged to participate in a free, upcoming Youth Mental Health First Aid training, which teaches participants how to support youth struggling with a mental health or substance abuse problem.

Just as CPR teaches community members to help when a person is having a heart attack, Youth Mental Health First Aid training gives people the tools to identify when a young person might be struggling with a mental health or substance use problem.

Family Service Agency, Mental Wellness Center and YouthWell provide community education around mental health as a way to support youth in our community.
> Find out more

Please be sure to visit our Resources for Policymakers page for more information on model programs, advocacy and patient rights, health care system change, technical assistance to coalitions, public awareness campaigns, and more.

Online Resources

Education and Training Resources

The Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) Network is an international, multidisciplinary resource for professionals in the addictions treatment and recovery services field. The Pacific Southwest regional center of the ATTC is located at UCLA and offers a variety of live and online trainings. You can access their events calendar here.

Of particular interest is Taking Action to Address Opioid Misuse, a series of educational courses specific to social workers, peer support workers, and counselors and psychologists. It includes webinars, toolkits, online courses, and articles on MAT and overdose prevention.

The California Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) is the largest state chapter of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) comprised of physicians and other healthcare professionals who are dedicated to improving the treatment of substance use disorders. With over 700 members, CSAM offers education, advocacy, and leadership in influential state and national roles. Of particular interest are the following publications and white papers:

Guidelines for Physicians Working in California Opioid Treatment Programs – CSAM/California Department of Health Care Services.

Use of Buprenorphine-Naloxone in the Emergency Department, David Kan, MD and Anna Lembke, MD. Emergency Department (ED) physicians are uniquely positioned to intervene to help patients with OUD at a critical moment in the addiction cycle. Some preliminary evidence suggests that buprenorphine formulations are a safe tool in the ED, do not promote drug-seeking, and may help to engage patients in further opioid addiction treatment.

The Opioid Response Network provides free educational resources and training to states, communities and individuals in the prevention, treatment and recovery of opioid use disorders and stimulant use. Of particular interest are a series of recent conferences and resources aimed to assist those looking to implement MAT programs in correctional systems: Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) in Corrections. They also highlight promising models for integrating treatment for opioid disorders into primary care and pediatric practices, as well as in hospital settings.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) provides extensive information on the various medications used in the treatment of Opioid Use Disorder as well as research on MAT Effectiveness. Learn how to become a Buprenorphine Waivered Practitioner or how your Opioid Treatment Program (OTP) can become accredited and certified to treat substance use disorders. For access to all of SAMHSA’s resources for substance abuse professionals, visit their
Practioner Training webpage.

The Recovery Research Institute is a leading nonprofit research institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, dedicated to the advancement of addiction treatment and recovery. They offer hundreds of articles here summarizing the latest evidence-based information and findings in addiction treatment and recovery research, as well as infographics, podcasts and webinars.

NIDAMED, from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), offers science-based resources for health professionals and those in training about screening, addressing, and treating addiction. Visit their page on Opioid Crisis and Pain Management to learn about the opioid crisis, safe opioid prescribing, and overdose prevention.

The End of the X Waiver to Prescribe Buprenorphine.

The removal of the X-Waiver requirement presents a significant opportunity to expand access to buprenorphine treatment for OUD and reflects the DEA’s recent trend of liberalizing access to treatment for OUD.

On January 12, 2023, DEA announced its full support for Congress’s policy reform, explaining that the removal of the X-Waiver will help increase access to buprenorphine for those in need nationwide. In concert with the change, all DEA registrants should be aware of the following:

An X-Waiver registration is no longer required to treat patients with buprenorphine for OUD.
All future prescriptions for buprenorphine only require a standard DEA registration number. X-Waiver registration numbers are no longer needed for any prescription.
There are no longer any limits or patient caps on the number of patients a prescriber may treat for OUD with buprenorphine.

CAA 2023 does not impact existing state laws or regulations that may be applicable.

SAMHSA and DEA are also working on the implementation of a separate provision of the CAA 2023 related to training requirements for DEA registration. The provision requires all providers who apply for a DEA license to prescribe controlled substances to undergo a one-time, non-repetitive, eight-hour training on managing patients with opioid and other substance use disorders. These requirements will go into effect on June 21, 2023.