What Is The Best Dose Of Methadone To Achieve Better Treatment Outcomes?
For most medical conditions, health care practitioners try to prescribe the lowest practical dose of a medication that will “get the job done.” This conservative approach is believed to help reduce unwanted side effects. But some of methadone’s properties make it different from most other medications, so that the “low dose” approach with methadone is usually not best. Just how large a dose is “enough” depends on individual patient needs. Numerous clinical trials have compared various doses of methadone for medication-assisted treatment (MAT). A finding reported consistently is that patients receiving higher doses have better outcomes related to illicit-opioid abstinence, retention in treatment, psychosocial rehabilitation, and others. Minimum and maximum doses decided by clinic policy rather than by medical criteria are contrary to best practices in MAT mandated by federal regulations. Although individual state requirements may vary, federal regulations do not require special permissio
