The Massachusetts Consultation Service for the Treatment of Addiction and Pain (MCSTAP), created through last year’s opioid law (Chapter 208), allows providers to call a number and have a consultant give advice on safe prescribing and managing care for patients with chronic pain and/or substance use disorder (SUD). The Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center provides medical leadership of MCSTAP, but MCSTAP’s physician consultants are experts from healthcare systems around the state.
MCSTAP is geared now to primary care practices but is able to field calls from hospital emergency departments. When a provider calls, a MCSTAP specialist will gather details and then send a request to a physician consultant, who will call the provider back within 30 minutes.
MCSTAP is a free service to providers funded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services through its contract with the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership.
The phone number – which is for providers only and not the public – is 1-833-724-6783 (1-833-PAIN-SUD), and is available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.