Opioid addiction treatment providers in Middle Tennessee are spinning up mobile units to increase access to highly effective step-down medications. But speed bumps still stand in the way truly mobile medication-assisted treatment.MAT, as it’s known, is now the standard of care and involves prescribing a patient an opioid like buprenorphine (better known by the brand name Suboxone) to ease the intense withdrawals that come along with stopping synthetic street drugs. Buprenorphine is also harder to abuse with little risk of overdose.

Around the country, drug treatment organizations have been looking for ways to reduce barriers to MAT, as it’s known. And distance makes a difference. Belmont University received $6.4 million from the opioid settlement money allotted to Tennessee after pitching

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