CEO of American Addiction Centers Discusses Treatment with Buprenorphine

The Odessa American carried an article from the Associated Press covering an interview with the CEO of American Addiction Centers, Michael Cartwright, who discusses the use of medically assisted treatment. The following excerpts are from Cartwright:

We give very little formal education to physicians, nurses in school or in college getting their degrees, on the disease of addiction. They don’t get very much information. So how would they know to use MAT (medication-assisted treatment) when someone shows up their doorstep? Until we start educating health care providers, it’s going to be hard to get more access for folks at the primary care clinic or wherever they show up for health care services.

We ought to be competent to have those discussions to the point that they know how to treat it. And to be clear, MAT isn’t the panacea. It’s a good tool in your toolbox.

Everybody is very excited about buprenorphine. It’s been around for 20 years and we’ve been using buprenorphine for 20 years in our clinics. I think what we’re trying to do as a company is to say, “What are the best practices out there and then how do we adopt them?”

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