The effect of British Columbia's Pharmacare coverage expansion for opioid agonist treatment
研究加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省扩大药物计划覆盖范围对阿片类激动剂治疗的影响，发现该政策显著提高了治疗保留率，使治疗中断次数减少12.8%。
Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) is the evidence-based standard of care for people with opioid use disorder. In British Columbia, Canada, only social assistance registrants received full coverage for OAT prior to the introduction of the Pharmacare Plan G coverage expansion on February 1st, 2017. We aimed to determine the effect of the coverage expansion on OAT initiation, re-initiation, and retention. Using linked population-level data, we executed a difference-in-differences analysis to compare outcomes of individuals eligible for the additional coverage and social assistance registrants already receiving the most generous coverage for OAT prior to the policy change, adjusting for individual and prescriber characteristics. We found Plan G coverage expansion significantly increased OAT retention. Specifically, coverage expansion decreased the number of OAT episode discontinuations by 12.8% (95% CI: 8.4%, 17.2%).