{"doi":"10.1093/haschl/qxaf036","title":"Medications for opioid use disorder in traditional medicare beneficiaries: associations with age","abstract":"Abstract Rates of opioid use disorder (OUD) have increased in older adults (age ≥ 50). Medications for OUD (MOUD) treat OUD effectively; however, limited data exist on whether older adults with OUD are provided MOUD. Using 2016-2020 claims data from Medicare beneficiaries with a new episode of OUD, we calculated rates of MOUD initiation (first dispensing within 14 days of index event), engagement (dispensing of a second MOUD within 34 days of initiation), and retention (receiving MOUD consistently over 180 days). Among beneficiaries with qualifying index events (N = 40 336), 17%, 38%, and 45% were ages 20-49, 50-64, and ≥ 65, respectively. Five hundred and three beneficiaries with a qualifying index event (1.3%) initiated MOUD, 461 (1.1%) reached engagement, and 309 (0.8%) were retained. Multivariable logistic regressions showed older age was associated with reduced MOUD initiation (compared with those aged 20-49, adjusted odds ratios [aORs] were 0.79 [95% CI, 0.64-0.98] and 0.36 [95% CI, 0.25-0.51] for ages 50-64 and ≥65, respectively). Reduced MOUD initiation was associated with female sex (aOR = 0.74; 95% CI, 0.61-0.89) and increasing comorbidity score (aOR = 0.76 per 1-point increase; 95% CI, 0.72-0.80). These results suggest that in addition to general efforts to increase uptake of MOUD, age-specific strategies are needed.","journal":"Health Affairs Scholar","year":2025,"id":543111,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9575,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1375547,"name":"Julie Lai","orcid":"0000-0001-9318-7748","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":654033,"name":"Jonathan Cantor","orcid":"0000-0003-4468-833X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":249690,"name":"Denis Agniel","orcid":"0000-0003-1483-2724","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":433490,"name":"Kosali Simon","orcid":"0000-0002-3231-1466","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":310785,"name":"Bradley D. Stein","orcid":"0000-0003-1544-458X","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":705062,"name":"Erin Audrey Taylor","orcid":"0000-0002-7819-1551","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":242024,"name":"David A. Ganz","orcid":"0009-0004-8512-1641","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":37,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:53:00.171379Z","pmid":"40040649","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}