Methadone patients can take home up to 28 days of doses

If you get methadone at an opioid treatment clinic, federal rules no longer require months of daily visits before your clinic can consider take-home doses. Your clinic can give you up to 7 days of doses to take home in your first two weeks, up to 14 days starting on day 15, and up to 28 days once you’ve been in treatment for a month. Your care team decides how many you get based on how you’re doing, and state rules can be stricter.

Getting started is easier, too. A clinic can do your first exam by video for methadone, or by video or phone for buprenorphine, if the provider thinks that’s enough to evaluate you. You no longer have to prove a year of opioid addiction to be admitted. Teens don’t have to fail treatment twice first. Clinics can’t refuse your medication because you turn down counseling. You do not file a separate federal application; your clinic decides which options are appropriate under federal and state rules.

During COVID, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration let clinics loosen take-home and telehealth rules. The agency, led by Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, made those changes permanent in the biggest update to these rules in more than 20 years. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra signed the rule, and it took effect April 2, 2024. In February 2026, HHS under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made only technical fixes to it. A pending bill, H.R. 5629, would nullify most of the rule, including these take-home, telehealth, and admission changes.