Buprenorphine for Opioid Addiction Treatment in Kansas City

An addiction to an opioid — such as heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, or fentanyl — can be very difficult to overcome on your own. To help patients recover from their opioid addiction, medical professionals will often use medication-assisted treatment (MAT). One of the most widely accepted and effective MATs for opioid addiction is buprenorphine. 

By lowering cravings and easing withdrawal symptoms, buprenorphine treatment allows a patient to focus on the vital elements of addiction recovery, such as therapy, life skills, and more. Through careful medical monitoring and collaborative care with a clinical team, a patient can use buprenorphine maintenance therapy to achieve long-time sobriety. 

To see how buprenorphine for opioid use disorder could impact your recovery, contact our team at Empowered Recovery Center in Kansas City.

What Is Buprenorphine? 

Buprenorphine is a medication used to treat opioid addiction. Buprenorphine works because it is a long-acting opioid that replaces the dangerous short-acting opioids that many people are addicted to or may overdose from, such as heroin, oxycodone, fentanyl, and others.¹ 

When buprenorphine is used to treat opioid use disorder (OUD), it is often combined with naloxone into a tablet that is absorbed under the tongue.² The addition of naloxone aids with opioid withdrawals and also prevents the user from being tempted to misuse the opioid to get high, as naloxone blocks a person from experiencing the effects of opioids.³ 

Buprenorphine uses include treating a person’s pain. To treat pain, a person is often given the medication in the form of a patch, which can provide relief for up to seven days.¹ There are several brands that sell medications containing buprenorphine, with some of them being dispensed in the form of a film. 

How Does Buprenorphine Work for OUD? 

Buprenorphine is one of the leading treatments for OUD because of its unique ability to wean people off an opioid. Buprenorphine achieves this because it is an opioid partial agonist — meaning that while it is an opioid medication, it produces lower levels of feelings of euphoria than other opioids.² 

After beginning a buprenorphine protocol, a patient will continue to feel these subdued opioid effects. However, before long, the patient will experience a “ceiling effect” where those effects level off.² At this point, even if the dosage of buprenorphine increases, the patient won’t feel higher levels of euphoria or related opioid effects. 

Since the patient knows they won’t be able to experience any sort of high, no matter how much they take, it decreases the temptation of abusing the medication. 

Side-Effects of Buprenorphine 

Like many medications, taking buprenorphine for opioid addiction has the potential to cause some side effects. The intensity of these effects varies person to person. 

At Empowered Recovery Center in Kansas City, our medical team will regularly check in with you about how you’re feeling throughout your buprenorphine for OUD treatment. If you are experiencing uncomfortable side effects, they may be able to offer assistance in relieving your symptoms or switch you to a different medication.  

Buprenorphine effects can include:^1,2 

• Constipation
• Excessive sweating
• Dry mouth
• Drowsiness
• Distress and irritability
• Muscle aches and cramps
• Nausea

Is Buprenorphine Safe? 

Buprenorphine is a safe and highly effective treatment option for opioid use disorder. One indication of this is its classification as a Schedule III drug. Drugs are categorized into one of five schedules, with Schedule I drugs having the highest potential for abuse and Schedule V drugs having the lowest potential.⁴

The majority of opioids fall into Schedule II,⁵ which shows how buprenorphine has a significantly lower risk of dependence than other drugs. 

Buprenorphine has many other advantages that make it a strong choice to treat opioid use disorder. It’s designed to have a lower potential for misuse, and it helps decrease the physical symptoms related to opioid dependency, such as cravings and withdrawal symptoms.²

Additionally, buprenorphine has been found to outperform other opioid use disorder treatments, such as methadone, because it is safe even at high dosages and an effective dose can be achieved in a short amount of time.⁶ 

While buprenorphine treatment for opioid addiction is safe when taken properly, mixing it with other opioids, alcohol, or benzodiazepines can be dangerous and should be avoided entirely.¹ 

Buprenorphine vs Methadone

While buprenorphine and methadone can both be effective treatments for opioid addiction, your medical team will determine which would be best for you. This can come down to several factors:

Where you’re receiving treatment

If you’re enrolled in an addiction treatment program, you can likely receive either methadone or buprenorphine. However, buprenorphine can also be prescribed or administered in doctor offices, making it more accessible.² 

Your preferred form of medication

While buprenorphine is often taken in the form of a pill, methadone is often ingested as a drink. 

Your risk of overdosing

Where you are on your recovery journey will be a factor in determining which medication you are prescribed. Typically, buprenorphine maintenance treatment has a lower risk of overdose.¹ 

How Long Is Buprenorphine Prescribed For?

The length of buprenorphine treatment can fluctuate depending on the patient’s needs. For one person, a treatment plan may last three to six months, while another person may follow a buprenorphine regimen for two years. Since there is no recommended time limit for buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder, your medical team will determine what duration is the best option for you.⁶

Buprenorphine is often first given to a patient when they begin experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the opioid they were misusing. For short-acting opioids, like heroin, the patient would begin their buprenorphine protocol 12 hours after their last use. Patients taking longer-acting opioids, such as morphine or controlled-release oxycodone, would begin their buprenorphine treatment 24 hours after their last use.⁶ 

At Empowered Recovery Center in Kansas City, our medical team will regularly check in with you and monitor your progress with your buprenorphine treatment course. When they determine that you no longer need to be on the medication, they’ll have a conversation with you to make sure you feel confident about stopping the treatment as well. If you do, they’ll walk you through the months-long tapering down process.⁶ They’ll be with you every step of the way, closely monitoring your physical and mental health to ensure you’re in a regulated place when you complete treatment. 

Will Insurance Cover Buprenorphine?  

Yes, many insurance policies cover medication-assisted treatment options like buprenorphine. This coverage comes from The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) of 2008, which requires health insurers to provide the same level of benefits for mental and/or substance use treatment that they do for medical care.⁷

While most insurance plans will cover some portion of a buprenorphine program, the amount of coverage will vary based on the specific plan’s details. To get a better picture of what your insurance policy will pay for, contact your insurance company directly by calling the number on the back of your insurance card. 

Our admissions team at our Kansas City addiction treatment facility is also happy to reach out to your insurance company on your behalf. We can verify your insurance benefits, explain your coverage to you, and answer any insurance or treatment-related questions you have. 

Opioid Addiction Treatment in Kansas City 

Opioid addictions are complex and layered. While buprenorphine treatment can be an essential element to your recovery, it’s only one part of a successful whole-person treatment plan. 

At Empowered Recovery Center in Kansas City, we utilize a comprehensive suite of treatment services to help you fully resolve your opioid addiction. This starts with choosing the right rehab program for you, whether that’s standard outpatient rehab, an intensive outpatient program (IOP), or a partial hospitalization program (PHP). Whichever program you choose includes extensive addiction therapy services, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and trauma therapy. 

We work with many insurance providers to make our programs as accessible as possible, and our admissions team is happy to see how your insurance plan would work with our facility. To learn more about how we work with insurance, our different payment options, and what getting admitted into one of our programs looks like, give us a call or fill out our contact form today. 

References 

1. Buprenorphine opioid addiction treatment. (n.d.). CAMH. Retrieved April 29, from https://www.camh.ca/en/health-info/mental-illness-and-addiction-index/buprenorphine
2. What is Buprenorphine? (n.d.). Psychiatric Research Institute. Retrieved April 29, from  https://psychiatry.uams.edu/clinical-care/outpatient-care/cast/buprenorphine/
3. Naloxone DrugFacts | National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2024, February 12). National Institute on Drug Abuse. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugfacts/naloxone
4. Drug scheduling. (n.d.). DEA. Retrieved April 30, from   https://www.dea.gov/drug-information/drug-scheduling
5. Dalal, S., Chitneni, A., Berger, A. A., Orhurhu, V., Dar, B., Kramer, B., Nguyen, A., Pruit, J., Halsted, C., Kaye, A. D., & Hasoon, J. (2021). Buprenorphine for chronic pain: a safer alternative to traditional opioids. Health Psychology Research. Retrieved April 30, from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8567798/
6. Kumar, R., Viswanath, O., & Saadabadi, A. (2024, June 8). Buprenorphine. StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf.  Retrieved April 30, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK459126/
7. Division, D. C. (2023, May 30). Does insurance cover treatment for opioid addiction? HHS.gov. Retrieved April 30, from https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/treatment/insurance-coverage/index.html