On December 29, 2022, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 was signed and removes the federal requirement for practitioners to submit a Notice of Intent (NOI), or a waiver application, to prescribe medications like buprenorphine, for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). With this provision, and effective immediately, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will no longer be accepting waiver applications.
All practitioners who have a current United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) registration that includes Schedule III authority, may now prescribe buprenorphine for OUD in their practice. There are no longer any limits or patient caps on the number of patients a prescriber may treat for OUD with buprenorphine.
Dispensers are no longer required to enter the “X-Waiver” number into the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program as all prescriptions for buprenorphine only require a standard DEA registration number.
SAMHSA and the DEA are actively working on implementation of a separate provision of the Act related to training requirements for DEA registration that becomes effective June 2023.
For continued updates, please visit SAMHSA’s website.
