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The article discusses the issue of relapse during addiction treatment in the U.S. Michael L. Dennis, a senior research psychologist, suggests that the addiction treatment system must change in order to provide appropriate continuing care. Systemic barriers to continuing care include relying on the patient's self motivation, discharging patients to areas where follow-up care is inaccessible and passively linking patients to other groups.

The article offers information on a new alternative payment model (APM) called Patient-Centered Opioid Addiction Treatment (P-COAT) proposed by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the American Medical Association (AMA) for the treatment of opioid use disorders (OUDs). Topics include the use of evaluation and management (E/M) codes among physicians, opioid treatment programs (OTPs), and comments from Shawn Ryan of ASAM.