Many doctors worry that the drugs' current popularity, fueled in part by social media, has resulted in people taking them without sufficient medical supervision.
The addiction crisis is increasingly eroding health systems' finances, with the treatment of opioid use disorder costing hospitals more than $95 billion a year, new data from Premier Inc. shows.
A wave of transformative but hugely expensive treatments is challenging the budgets of health systems in wealthy nations. Now countries with far fewer resources are wrestling with how to cover the therapies.