Request for Information: Opioid Analgesic Prescriber Education and Training Opportunities To Prevent Opioid Overdose and Opioid Use Disorder

Deaths from drug overdose have risen steadily over the past two decades and have become the leading cause of injury death in the United States. Prescription drugs, especially opioid analgesics--a class of prescription drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, morphine, and methadone used to treat both acute and chronic pain--have been increasingly implicated in drug overdose deaths over the last decade. Alarmingly, deaths related to opioid analgesic overdose have quadrupled since 1999, and this increase in deaths has been linked to parallel increases in opioid prescribing. As part of its comprehensive response to the opioid epidemic, HHS is actively working to stem overprescribing of opioids in a number of ways, including by providing clinicians with the tools and education they need to make informed prescribing decisions. In particular, HHS has developed a number of activities that support opioid analgesic prescriber education. This Request for Information (RFI) seeks comment on the most promising approaches in prescriber education and training programs and effective ways to leverage HHS programs to implement/expand them.