Opioid and benzodiazepine tapering: Best practices

Opioids and Benzodiazepine Tapering: Best Practices, provides a practical guide to safely and effectively tapering patients off opioids and benzodiazepines. This session will focus on patient selection for tapering, including identifying those at high risk for serious adverse outcomes and those most likely to benefit from this process. Participants will learn effective strategies for introducing the concept of tapering to patients, ensuring clear communication and patient buy-in. The lecture will then delve into best practices for tapering both opioids and benzodiazepines, addressing the specific challenges and considerations for each drug class. Finally, this session will discuss the transition from traditional chronic opioid therapy to buprenorphine, offering guidance on this increasingly common practice.

Target Audience

Physicians
Advanced Practice Clinicians

Learning Objectives

Identify patient selection for tapering, including those at-risk for serious adverse outcomes and/or who would benefit from tapering
Examine how to introduce tapering to patients in an effective manner
Explore best practices around tapering opioids
Explore best practices around tapering benzodiazepines
Analyze transitions from traditional chronic opioid therapy to buprenorphine

Rachael Duncan

Rachael Duncan, PharmD, BCPS, BCCP, is a Colorado-based clinical pharmacist board-certified in pharmacotherapy and critical care pharmacy. She has spent the past decade focused on policy, advocacy, and educational work surrounding opioid stewardship and addiction treatment at both the state and national level. Rachael is the Chief Clinical Officer of Epifluence, where she is Program Director of the Maternal Overdose Matters (MOMs+) Initiative and Associate Director of The Naloxone Project (TNP). She leads several educational and quality improvement initiatives focused on helping hospitals and health systems build addiction treatment infrastructure, with a special focus on rural and frontier communities. She is the author and editor of multiple state- and nation-wide guidelines around opioid stewardship, alternatives to opioids (ALTO) for pain management, and MOUD for addiction treatment, championed ALTO and MOUD across Colorado EDs with the Colorado Hospital Association, and published the first peer-reviewed paper on ALTOs in the ED. Rachael’s clinical experience is in ED and hospital pharmacy.

Continuing Medical Education (CME)

Accreditation: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Iowa Medical Society (IMS). Compass Healthcare Collaborative is accredited by the IMS to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Designation: Compass designates this live activity for a maximum of 1.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™ Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Commercial Support: This activity was developed without support from any ineligible company. *The ACCME defines ineligible companies as those whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Note: The ACCME does not consider providers of clinical service directly to patients to be commercial interests unless the provider of clinical services is owned, or controlled by, and ACCME defined ineligible company.

Disclosure: Compass adheres to the Standards for Integrity and Independence in Accredited Continuing Education. The content of this activity is not related to products or the business lines of an ACCME-defined ineligible company. None of the planners or moderators for this educational activity have relevant financial relationships to disclose with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing products used by or on patients.

Note: AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ are accepted for nursing and other healthcare discipline license renewal purposes, provided the topic is relevant to the applicant’s field or discipline. After participating, you will receive a Certificate of Attendance detailing the number of AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ you can claim. This certificate is provided for self-reporting requirements and must be submitted to your state board for license renewal.

Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Credit Designation: Improvement Activity (IA): This activity qualifies for MIPS credit as an Improvement Activity. Participants who successfully completed the activity are eligible for full credit for the Improvement Activities category of the MIPS program. Note: Each provider must attest to your participation and practice changes on the CMS QPP website, but you can reference the MIPS verbiage noted below.

Activity Type: Patient Safety and Practice Assessment (IA_PSPA_CME):

Activity ID: IA_PSPA_28: Completion of an Accredited Safety or Quality Improvement Program.

Documentation includes:

Meaningful clinician participation in a project focused on improving pain management.
Documentation of data collection and analysis regarding prescribing patterns.
Implementation of interventions to improve quality or safety.
Measurement of the impact of the interventions.

Available Credit
1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™