Health officials in New York will continue to allow telemedicine when treating people struggling with addiction and substance abuse disorder under a determination issued Tuesday by Acting Health Commissioner James McDonald. 

The move comes as overdose deaths have sharply increased in the last year and as public health departments at the state and local levels have sought to expand ways of providing care for people during the COVID pandemic. 

The determination issued by McDonald will allow health care practitioners to continue to use telemedicine as an option to treat and prescribe medication and perform patient evaluations permitted under federal guidelines. The rules had been limited under the duration of the federal government's public health emergency declaration due to the pandemic. 

Prescriptions like buprenorphine and buprenorphine/naloxone that help counter the effects of drug cravings can be prescribed in these telehealth sessions. 

“This determination continues to allow health care providers to initiate buprenorphine with a telephone evaluation, expanding access to this lifesaving medication to help combat the opioid epidemic in New York,” McDonald said. “Telemedicine options provide critical support, therapy, and medication to New Yorkers with opioid use disorder, while also reducing traditional barriers and ensuring that this medication is widely accessible.”

Half of all overdose deaths now involve the drug fentanyl, and New York this summer moved to require all pharmacies in the state to carry naloxone, a drug that can counter the effects of an overdose.