Methadone Take-Home Flexibilities Extension Guidance

SAMHSA is pre-emptively granting OTPs an exemption, effective upon the expiration of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, and subject to the conditions identified below, from the unsupervised take-home medication requirements of 42 C.F.R. § 8.12(i) that are necessary to (1) dispense up to 28 days of take-home doses of opioid use disorder medication to stable patients if the OTP believes the patient can safely handle this amount of take-home medication and (2) dispense up to 14 days of take-home doses of opioid use disorder medication to less stable patients if the OTP believes the patient can safely handle this amount of take-home medication. SAMHSA is also considering mechanisms to make this flexibility permanent.