Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of United States Representatives – Phil Roe of Tennessee, Raul Ruiz of California, Andy Harris of Maryland, and Ami Bera of California – introduced a congressional resolution that expressed support for the need to expand training for physicians on opioid prescribing.
The concurrent resolution notes that: medical colleges should, as part of the curriculum, continue to improve and expand training for physicians about how to properly treat pain and prescribe opioids; residency programs should devote a specific focus on proper opioid prescribing for each specialty; mid-level health care providers should receive additional training while in school regarding appropriate prescribing practices for opioids; and practitioners currently in practice should receive additional training in pain management and opioid prescribing habits through continuing medical education (CME).
Interestingly, all four representatives who introduced the resolution are physicians, perhaps highlighting the importance of CME in the professional development of physicians in America.
CME Coalition Applauds the Resolution
Chris Lamond, Executive Director of the CME Coalition, and Andrew Rosenberg, Senior Advisor of the CME Coalition, wrote a letter to the four representatives, thanking them for their “efforts to highlight the importance of medical education as a means of improving our Nation’s health.”
The CME Coalition, founded in 2011, is made up of nearly fifty CME providers, beneficiaries, and CME supporters, who advocate for the merits of accredited CME and manage/support the development of CME programs that impact more than half a million physicians, nurses and pharmacists annually. CME Coalition members understand the potential upside in using its reach to better educate health care providers about the inherent risks that exist in prescribing opioids.
Lamond and Rosenberg note that while there is no “’silver bullet’ solution,” the resolution will help to encourage future education for opioids prescribers, which will ultimately improve patient outcomes and reduce the number of lives impacted by, or lost to, opioids.
The CME Coalition notes in the letter, “Over the last 20 years, some clinicians have prescribed opioids without adequate training surrounding their abuse potential, leading to improper prescribing practices that have contributed to the national scourge of opioid addiction. Meanwhile, as opioid abuse has become a national crisis, many providers have become reluctant to prescribe opioid pain relievers, leading some chronic pain patients — which encompasses nearly one third of the U.S. population — to go without any appropriate treatment. CME has proven to be a critical resource in educating physicians on the potential for abuse and addiction in prescribing opioid medications, and has been found to reliably change health professionals’ knowledge and competence, as evidenced in their performance and patient health outcomes.”
Resolution Status
The resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives on January 29, 2019 and referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that same date. It currently sits at the Subcommittee on Health, where it has been since February 12, 2019. At this time, it does not appear that a duplicate concurrent resolution has been introduced in the Senate. Hopefully, this resolution will not fall by the wayside and the 116th Congress will take a stand and recognize the importance of CME in managing the opioid crisis.