Suboxone FAQs

Suboxone treatment is a commonly used phrase for medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Suboxone treatment through Bicycle Health is only available to patients who receive a medical diagnosis of opioid use disorder from a Bicycle Health clinician. 

Suboxone treatment is not for everyone as risks & side effects may occur. Suboxone contains an opioid medicine called buprenorphine that can cause serious and life-threatening breathing problems, especially if you take or use certain other medicines or drugs. 

Talk to a healthcare provider about naloxone, a medicine available to patients for emergency treatment of an opioid overdose, including accidental use of SUBOXONE Sublingual Film by a child. If naloxone is given, you must call 911 or get emergency medical help right away to treat an overdose or accidental use of an opioid. To learn more go to www.suboxone.com

Treatment of opioid use disorder with Suboxone has been shown to block the euphoric effects of opioids and relieve opioid cravings.   

Treatment of opioid use disorder with Suboxone has also been shown to reduce non-fatal drug overdoses by more than 300 percent, according to a UPMC study published in PubMed. And, treatment of opioid use disorder with Suboxone has been shown to lower healthcare costs by over 40 percent according to two independent studies published in Journal of Addiction Science & Clinical Practice and PubMed. 

The ability to stay in treatment (“retention”) is the most commonly used measure in published medical literature for evaluating successful outcomes for opioid use disorder treatment programs. 

Bicycle Health patients are nearly two-times as likely to stay in treatment and more than twice as likely to attend scheduled doctor visits than the industry average for in-person treatment for opioid use disorder. Learn more about the quality of our treatment program in this study published in the medical journal, BMJ Innovations.

Patient satisfaction is a qualitative metric. In 2022, researchers at the nonprofit RAND Corporation and Harvard University conducted independent qualitative research on telehealth treatment programs for patients with OUD and used Bicycle Health patients to do their research. They compared their experience with Bicycle Health to office-based opioid treatment (OBOT). The research was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine (JAM)

Patients in the study found Bicycle Health’s treatment program to be simple, safe and effective, relative to in-person care. The study found that more than 75% of patients interviewed were satisfied with the tele-OUD services they received from Bicycle Health.  

That study also found that more than 75% of patients interviewed were satisfied with how easy it was to use Bicycle Health’s treatment program, and nearly all of the patients interviewed appreciated how quickly Bicycle Health was able to initiate treatment for them. Many patients in this study emphasized their frustrations with the stigma they experienced seeking in-person OUD care in the past. 

Patients in this study also noted that Bicycle Health made it easy to get treatment, without facing in-person exposure to other people with OUD.  Over 75% of participants with experience receiving in-person OUD treatment described their experience with Bicycle Health in positive terms, relative to in-person care.