(Feb. 28, 2025) – U.S. House Passes Budget Resolution
On Tuesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a budget resolution that provides structure to an appropriations package and committee budgetary instructions. The latest Senate budget resolution is significantly different than the House version. Once the Senate passes its version of a budget resolution, a reconciliation process will need to occur.
House Concurrent Resolution 14 includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in reduced federal spending over the next 10 years. The resolution calls for deficit spending of $2.1 trillion for the federal fiscal year 2025, a national debt increase to $55.6 billion by the end of FFY 2034 and raises the debt ceiling by $4 trillion. The Committee on Energy and Commerce would need to create a budget that decreases spending by $880 billion over the next 10 years.
ASAM Offers Strategies for Engaging Nonabstinent Patients in SUD Treatment
Less than 15 percent of those living with a substance use disorder in the U.S. receive treatment each year. One possible explanation is the common misconception that a patient must abstain from all substances first. Patients who continue or resume use are often denied or discharged from treatment.
To combat this, the American Society for Addiction Medicine developed guidance, published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, on the engagement and retention of nonabstinent patients in SUD treatment. The guidance includes the following 10 strategies.
- Cultivate patient trust by creating a welcoming, nonjudgmental and trauma-sensitive environment.
- Do not require abstinence as a condition of treatment initiation or retention.
- Optimize clinical interventions to promote patient engagement and retention.
- Only administratively discharge patients as a last resort.
- Seek to reengage individuals who disengage from care.
- Build connections with people with SUD who are not currently seeking treatment.
- Cultivate staff acceptance and support.
- Prioritize retention of front-line staff.
- Align policies and procedures with the commitment to improve engagement and retention of all patients, including nonabstinent patients.
- Measure progress and strive for continuous improvement of engagement and retention.
Before You Go ...
- A recent viewpoint article published in JAMA Psychiatry entitled, A Framework for Suicide Risk Screening After Overdose: The Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) Trauma Survey Framework, explores innovative ways to tackle the co-existing epidemics of suicide and drug overdose.
- A report published in JAMA Network Open entitled, Mindfulness Training vs. Recovery Support for Opioid Use, Craving, and Anxiety During Buprenorphine Treatment: A Randomized Clinical Trial, shows the clear benefits of additional education and support for patients taking medications for opioid use disorder.