Missed Opportunities: Substance Use Hotline Operator Uncertainty of State Buprenorphine Prescribing via Telemedicine.

Objectives: We examined substance use hotline operator certainty of each US state and Washington, DC's endorsement of buprenorphine (initiation and continuation) prescribing via telemedicine.

Methods: Between March and May 2021, we called hotlines in 50 US states and Washington, DC, requesting information on whether practitioners in that state could initiate or continue buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) via telephone or video conference. We compared operator responses to state implementation of buprenorphine telemedicine initiation.