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In the 20 years that Kim has been using buprenorphine, there have been several times where changes in her life, like her move, or changes in policy have abruptly cut her off from her medication.

Medications like buprenorphine and methadone are considered the gold standard for treating addiction, according to decades of research, because they can reduce deaths as well as improve social functionality.

“Probably the single biggest policy-level change that has benefited addiction treatment has been guaranteeing Medicaid and Medicare coverage for medical treatment of addiction with methadone and buprenorphine,” Dr. Ryan Marino, an emergency medicine physician at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, told Salon.

Medicaid funding not only expands access to medication-assisted treatment like buprenorphine and methadone, but also funds things like group or individual therapy as well as programs that help people find employment and other aspects of recovery in certain states, said Dr. Elizabeth Stone, who researches health services and policy at Rutgers University.

We know what does work: methadone and buprenorphine are fundamental to good opioid addiction treatment and are proven to cut the risk of overdose in half.