Interactive Training Series

Applying CDC’s Guideline for Prescribing Opioids

An Online Training Series for Healthcare Providers

More than 40 people die every day from prescription opioid-involved overdose. The CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain provides recommendations for safer and more effective prescribing of opioids for chronic pain in patients 18 and older in outpatient settings outside of active cancer treatment, palliative care, and end-of-life care.

This online training series aims to help you apply CDC’s recommendations in your clinical setting through interactive patient scenarios, videos, knowledge checks, tips, and resources. You will gain a better understanding of the recommendations, the risks and benefits of prescription opioids, nonopioid treatment options, patient communication, and risk mitigation. See below for the trainings that are available for the series, as well as those that are proposed, throughout this year. Please routinely check back for updates and availability.

Training Courses

Additional Training Courses Coming Soon

• Communicating With Patients
  Providers will learn communication strategies they can use when treating chronic pain, including motivational interviewing.
• Deciding Whether to Prescribe
  In this section of the training, providers learn mechanisms for deciding if opioids should be prescribed, and next steps for treatment – whether opioid or non-opioid treatments are selected.
• Dosing and Titration of Opioids: How Much, How Long, and How and When to Stop?
  When providers choose to prescribe opioids, they need to know how to properly dose and titrate opioids to reduce risk of opioid use disorder and overdose.  This module explains methods of dosing and titration.
• Reducing the Risks of Opioids
  Providers will learn best risk mitigation strategies and when to employ them after prescribing an opioid.
• Assessing and Addressing Opioid Use Disorder
  This module describes methods available to a provider for assessing and addressing an opioid use disorder when it is suspected.
• Implementing the CDC Guideline
  This module provides strategies and tools for implementing the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in a provider’s own practice, while outlining steps to overcome common barriers to implementation.