Payers and providers play an important role in addressing the opioid crisis in our communities. This page highlights the most recently added resources specifically targeting healthcare providers, healthcare system employees, and individuals who manage private and public insurance plans. These resources, identified with blue tiles, include patient and provider education materials, clinical practice guidelines and practice protocols, and research and reports about insurance coverage and benefit design around addiction treatment and pain management.
If you’d like to submit materials for inclusion consideration or suggest a future featured topic, please visit CLOUD’s call for submissions page.
This guidance from Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing provides information for prescribers on the myths and facts of opioid treatment for chronic pain and the dos and dont’s for acute and chronic pain management. The guidance has been distributed or endorsed by many provider groups and state
This 2017 report from the Association for Community Affiliated Plans describes innovative practices designed to address opioid misuse and treat opioid use disorder (OUD) implemented in 5 Medicaid managed care organizations across the country. The practices focus on prevention and detection of misuse of
This report summarizes findings from two studies from 2017 that looked at risk factors associated with the development of neonatal withdrawal syndrome (also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome) in babies born to mothers with opioid use disorder. Published in the National Institute on Drug Abuse research notes.
This guide from the National Institute on Drug Abuse addresses treating opioid use disorder (OUD) during pregnancy. It includes information about the effects of OUD on unborn children and newborns and about the benefits of medication assisted treatment for pregnant women with OUD diagnoses.
In this 5 minute video, Dr. Don Teater, medical advisor at the National Safety Council, discusses evidence of the effectiveness of opioid medicine for the treatment of pain and the risks of opioid prescribing. Dr. Teater offers advice to health care providers about safe opioid prescribing and alternatives to opioid prescriptions for treating pain.
Dr. Don Teater, medical advisor to the National Safety Council, addresses dentists in this video and offers advice on how dentists can reduce inappropriate opioid prescribing while still managing patient’s dental pain.
Louie Miceli started using prescription opioids after a sports injury. In this video, Louie’s mother and friend speak of Louie and how his prescription eventually led to addiction, the use of heroin, and his death from overdose in 2012. Produced by the National Safety Council in 2014.
From this website, the National Academies of Medicine 2019 report “Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Save Lives” can be downloaded for free. Also available are a press release, executive summaries of the report’s conclusions and highlights, and a social media toolkit for dissemination.
This website from the American Medical Association (AMA) is the home of their opioid task force and includes task force policy recommendations as well as information about topics such as naloxone, substance use disorder treatment, as well as the activities of state AMA chapters to address the opioid crisis.
The STOP initiative from AHIP (America’s Health Insurance Plans) is intended to help reduce unsafe opioid prescribing by providing a system to measure adherence to opioid prescribing guidelines using insurance claims data. This report describes other strategies health plans may use to reduce inappropriate and unsafe prescriptions.