1. Medication Assisted Treatment or (Medication for Addiction Treatment) is an important frontier in ED care of patients with Opioid Use Disorder. Naltrexone, methadone and buprenorphine are the medications approved for the treatment of OUD.
2. Addiction is a disease that is widely misunderstood and rarely taught in medical school.
3. It is a dangerous myth that the best treatment of all addictions is simply abstinence.
4. The evolving consensus around OUD is that is best treated with medication. An opioid addiction should be treated with an opioid agonist.
5. MAT is shown to substantially decrease mortality and morbidity for OUD.
6. The treatment gap for OUD is egregious--as high as 75% in Colorado.
7. Emergency department providers can be part of the solution to this problem by understanding and, when indicated, initiating proper treatment for OUD.

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