Educational outreach aimed at providers reduced opioid and benzodiazepine co-prescribing, which investigators said could help improve patient safety. Researchers presented their findings at AMCP Nexus 2022.

“Concurrent use of opioids and benzodiazepines increases the risk of serious adverse events such as severe respiratory depression and death,” said researchers from MC-Rx, a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) based in Puerto Rico. “Nonetheless, these continue to be prescribed concurrently.”

The quasi-experimental, pre- and post-test study used claims data to measure the frequency of opioid and benzodiazepine co-prescribing before and after educational outreach.

Before the intervention, 266 physicians prescribed concurrent benzodiazepines and opioids to 181 patients. Of these, 146 physicians showed high-risk prescribing behaviors—such as prescribing both medications to the same patient for more than 15 days—and were targeted to receive the intervention. One-time clinical education was implemented for 49 providers out of this targeted group.

Before the intervention, researchers identified 603 co-prescriptions out of a total of 144,535 claims. After the intervention, however, there were 280 co-prescriptions across 130,207 claims, representing a 48% reduction.

More patients stopped taking concurrent opioids and benzodiazepines with providers who received the intervention as compared to those without the intervention (81% vs 39%).

“Clinical educational outreach by a PBM service may provide an effective strategy to improve patient safety and reduce opioid and benzodiazepine co-prescribing,” researchers concluded.

Reference:
Rodriguez-Ochoa A, Padilla E. Improving patient safety by decreasing co-prescribing of benzodiazepines and opioids. J Manag Care Spec Pharm. 2022;28(10-a suppl):S1-S137. doi:10.18553/jmcp.2022.28.10-a.s1