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WASHINGTON – Congressman Paul D. Tonko’s bipartisan addiction treatment bill, H.R. 3692: Addiction Treatment Access Improvement Act, was adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives today as part of the omnibus opioid bill H.R. 6, which passed by a vote of 396 to 14.

“Overdoses claimed more than 64,000 American lives in 2016, now the single greatest cause of death for Americans under 50, yet just 1 in 5 Americans suffering from a substance use disorder is currently receiving treatment,” Tonko observed. “Our national response needs to rise to meet the unprecedented scale of this crisis. I am delighted that the House voted this afternoon to adopt my Addiction Treatment Access Improvement Act as part of the legislation passed today. Ensuring patients can access cutting-edge addiction treatment is a matter of life and death for countless Americans and their families. This bill takes an important step forward in this fight and I urge the Senate to take it up and approve it without delay.”

H.R. 3692: the Addiction Treatment Access Improvement Act empowers certain specializations of advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) to prescribe or dispense buprenorphine for treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD), and makes permanent existing levels of expanded treatment capacity for nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs).  The bill has received support from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Nurses Association, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Academy of Physician Assistants, the American College of Nurse-Midwives, the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. 

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