Fourteen percent of high school students say that they have misused prescription opioids, placing them at higher risk of overdose, mental health issues and suicide.
While the number of teens using opioids has declined in recent years, a new virtual treatment option has emerged for some teens still struggling with opioid use disorder (OUD).
Virtual OUD provider Bicycle Health launched a program for teens ages 16 and 17 who live in Maine, offering them virtual treatment and access to evidence-based medications for opioid use disorder (MOUDs).
“Vulnerable patient populations, like adolescents, are often overlooked in conversations around treatment access and program design,” Dr. Brian Clear, chief medical officer, told Addiction Treatment Business in an email. “But opioid misuse is not uncommon among teens, and our program in Maine was prompted by conversations with providers in Maine about the need for treatment options for teens.”
The program revolves around forging a relationship between the teen and a medical provider with an addiction medicine specialty, Clear said.
Teens must have a parent or responsible adult attend their first enrollment visit. Within 72 hours of their initial visit, teens meet with their clinician for an hour-long video appointment.
Bicycle clinicians can provide teens with medications like buprenorphine, including an injectable form of the drug which can improve adherence. The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended MOUDs for adolescents since 2016.
Once in the program, teens continue to see their clinician regularly while stabilizing on medication, if prescribed. Teens then have at least one monthly appointment and participate in individual or group support services with a recovery coach or social worker. Bicycle also issues regular, randomized drug screenings “to assess the effectiveness of care.”
The provider accepts insurance from several major health plans, including United Healthcare, Anthem, Aetna, BlueCross BlueShield and Medicare.
While the new teen program is currently limited to Maine, Bicycle aims to offer adolescent care to other geographic areas.
“We are already looking at expanding the treatment of adolescents in other states,” Clear said. “We are hopeful that this program will be a successful blueprint that we will be able to build on to continue to increase access for adolescents struggling with OUD.”
The new program comes only months after Bicycle experienced significant shakeups.
Bicycle’s clinicians made virtual health care history when they filed to unionize in February and won the union election in April. The digital health care space has seen few other successful unionization attempts, with mental health provider Resilience Lab as one notable exception.
Bicycle laid off 15% of its staff weeks before its clinicians filed to unionize, which the company said was to realign resources to “direct patient care.”
