IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY TO THESE ANIMALS –
Aug. 7, 2026 – An epidemic of opioid addiction costs the United States as much as $4 trillion per year in health care, criminal justice and lost productivity costs. But an evidence-based, neuroscience-informed therapy for opioid misuse and chronic pain saves $12 for every dollar spent, according to a new economic evaluation conducted by a University of Utah health economist.
That’s between two and six times more cost-effective than other addiction treatments. Over the course of a patient’s life, the analysis found that these savings came out to more than $324,000 per patient.
The results suggest that, if widely implemented, the therapy, called Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) could be a potent, cost-effective solution for the opioid crisis, according to economics professor Fernando Wilson, who holds a joint appointment in the Department of Population Health Science at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
