GAO Grades Administration’s Opioid Emergency Response

A new GAO report slams the Trump administration for not taking full advantage of emergency authorities to fight the opioid epidemic.

Researchers from the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s investigative arm, found that the administration used only three emergency authorities out of a possible 17 made available by its public health emergency declaration of Oct. 26, 2017.

HHS invoked its emergency authority to bypass Office of Management and Budget review to quickly roll out a survey of more than 13,000 providers in March 2018 to assess prescribing trends for buprenorphine, used to treat opioid use disorder and any barriers to prescribing the drug.