Prescriber Education in New York: Pain Management, Palliative Care, and Addiction Risk Mitigation

At the conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Analyze federal and New York State controlled-substance prescribing requirements to support Systems-Based Practice workflow compliance for PMP/I-STOP use.

2. Integrate evidence-based principles of pain management and appropriate prescribing to clinical practice to minimize patient risk.

3. Contrast clinical strategies for managing acute pain with multimodal interventions versus palliative medicine approaches for serious illness.

4. Implement validated screening and response protocols for patients exhibiting signs of substance abuse or addiction.

5. Evaluate ethical and clinical frameworks for providing comprehensive end-of-life care within the New York legal landscape.

This course reviews New York’s mandatory prescriber education topics, focusing on safe and compliant controlled-substance prescribing, evidence-based acute pain management, palliative care principles, and identification and response to substance use disorder. Learners will connect legal requirements such as I-STOP/PMP use and prescribing limits to practical clinical decision-making, including multimodal analgesia strategies and risk-screening workflows. The goal is to support safer prescribing practices that reduce preventable harm while maintaining appropriate symptom control across acute, chronic, and end-of-life contexts.

Prescribers face ongoing risk from rapidly changing legal requirements, variable workflow implementation, and inconsistent uptake of evidence-based pain and addiction practices. This activity addresses those gaps by translating key mandates and clinical principles into usable processes for daily practice.

Terminology Note: New York’s Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) registry functions as the state’s prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP). In this course, ‘PMP’ refers to New York’s PDMP registry accessed under I-STOP requirements (New York Senate, n.d.; New York State Department of Health, n.d.-b).

This course satisfies the three-hour continuing education requirement for New York prescribers in pain management, palliative care, and addiction, which must be completed once every three years.