Articles

Hospital-to-Community MAT Handoffs: Bridge Prescribing, Discharge Workflow Controls, and Follow-Up Guarantees That Prevent Drop-Off
Hospitalization and inpatient stays can either stabilize MAT or create a treatment gap that leads to relapse and avoidable ED use. This article explains how counties and providers design hospital-to-community MAT handoffs with bridge prescriptions, reconciled medication plans, scheduled follow-up, and audit-ready discharge workflows that make continuity reliable. Read more...
Perinatal MAT Pathways: Building OB-Integrated Access, Safety Monitoring, and Postpartum Continuity That Prevents Relapse
Pregnancy and the first year postpartum are high-risk periods for overdose and treatment disruption, especially when MAT workflows sit outside prenatal care. This article explains how counties and providers design OB-integrated MAT pathways with clear safety gates, child welfare coordination, and postpartum continuity routines that hold engagement without creating punitive barriers. Read more...
Managing Benzodiazepine and Sedative Co-Use in MAT Pathways: Safety Gates, Monitoring Routines, and Defensible Clinical Decision-Making
Sedative co-use is a common reality in MAT pathways and a frequent driver of preventable overdose risk, diversion concerns, and inconsistent care decisions across providers. This article explains how counties build practical safety gates, monitoring workflows, and escalation pathways that protect patients and staff while keeping engagement and continuity intact. Read more...
Reducing Prior Authorization Drag in MAT Pathways: Coverage Controls That Prevent Delays, Drop-Off, and Unsafe Gaps
MAT access often fails not because clinicians cannot prescribe, but because coverage steps create silent delays—prior authorization, formulary barriers, and pharmacy denials that stall initiation and destabilize continuity. This article explains how counties design coverage navigation workflows, pharmacy coordination routines, and auditable exception processes that keep MAT starts on time without weakening safety. Read more...
Methadone Access and OTP Coordination: Designing County Pathways for Guest Dosing, Take-Home Safety, and Continuity Across Settings
Methadone continuity fails when counties treat OTP operations, guest dosing, and take-home rules as separate administrative issues rather than a controlled clinical pathway. This article explains how systems design methadone access workflows that coordinate OTPs, hospitals, jails, and outreach teams with clear governance, diversion controls, and measurable continuity. Read more...
Hospital-to-Community MAT Continuity: Designing Discharge Workflows That Prevent Gaps, Relapse, and Avoidable Readmissions
MAT is often interrupted during hospitalizations because discharge planning treats it as “outpatient follow-up” rather than a time-critical medication continuity task. This article explains how counties build hospital-to-community MAT workflows with clear prescribing responsibility, pharmacy coordination, and auditable handoffs that prevent gaps and reduce avoidable ED returns. Read more...
MAT for People with Co-Occurring Mental Health Conditions: Designing Integrated Dual-Diagnosis Pathways That Prevent Dropout
MAT retention declines sharply when mental health care runs on a parallel track with separate appointments and disconnected documentation. This article outlines how counties build integrated dual-diagnosis pathways with shared workflows, clinical escalation rules, and accountable follow-up that improves safety and measurable retention. Read more...
MAT for Pregnant and Parenting People: Designing Safe, Non-Punitive Pathways Across OB, Pediatrics, and Community Care
Pregnancy and early parenting are high-risk transition periods where MAT access is often disrupted by stigma, reporting fears, and fragmented coordination. This article explains how counties design integrated, non-punitive MAT pathways across obstetrics, pediatrics, and community providers with clear governance, safeguarding, and measurable continuity. Read more...
Stabilization After MAT Start: Designing Follow-Up Cadence, Diversion Controls, and “Rescue” Pathways for Early Instability
Starting MAT is not the same as stabilizing on MAT—early weeks are where missed doses, side effects, and logistics failures trigger dropout. This article explains how counties design follow-up cadence, escalation routes, and diversion-safe prescribing routines that keep people engaged without creating paperwork-only compliance or slowing access. Read more...
Designing MAT Continuity After Detox and Residential Treatment: Bridge Prescribing, Warm Handoffs, and No-Show Recovery
Detox and residential discharge is where MAT continuity most often breaks—prescriptions lapse, pharmacy access fails, and follow-up becomes “optional” in practice. This article sets out an operational continuity design that uses bridge medication, governed handoffs, and rapid re-engagement workflows so counties can reduce post-discharge overdose risk and document accountable follow-through. Read more...
Measuring MAT Access Pathway Performance: Timeliness, Conversion, Safety, and Accountability That Withstand Oversight
MAT access performance cannot be judged by “starts” alone. This article explains how systems measure MAT access pathways using timeliness and conversion metrics, safety indicators, audit trails, and continuous improvement routines that satisfy funders without distorting delivery. Read more...
Reducing MAT Waitlists: Capacity Engineering, Scheduling Controls, and Access Guarantees That Actually Work
MAT waitlists are rarely a pure “demand problem” — they are usually a workflow and capacity design problem. This article explains how systems reduce MAT waitlists using access guarantees, scheduling controls, and capacity engineering that converts inquiries into starts without sacrificing safety. Read more...