To help dental providers navigate the national opioid crisis, Cigna Healthcare Dental has launched Fighting Prescription Opioid Abuse, an educational series developed exclusively for The Cigna Dental Digital Newsroom.
Welcome to the fourth article of our series, Finding Solutions. Our goal is to provide you with relevant information that you can incorporate into your daily practice.
Cigna Healthcare Dental is striving to change the conversation about the opioid epidemic – away from shame and blame, and toward compassion and community efforts to help solve the problems. As part of these efforts, we are offering support and resources for practice-based efforts and sharing helpful information with members
Resources for you
- Oral Analgesics for Acute Dental Pain | American Dental Association. This ADA guide contains information and tools to aid you in the management of dental pain.
- Dental Pain Care | Overdose Prevention | CDC: The 2022 CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain (2022 Clinical Practice Guideline) provides evidence-based recommendations to support clinicians, including dentists and other oral health practitioners.
- Treating Pain flyer. Discusses the risks, benefits, and alternatives to opioids as a pain management strategy; the flyer is available for you to share with your patients.
- Substance Use Disorders | Resources and Seminars | Cigna Healthcare. Find expert advice and information on substance use disorders in this behavioral awareness seminar series.
- Evernorth Provider – Resources – Clinical Screening Tools: Health benefit carriers, employer groups, and epidemiologists increasingly recommend the use of validated screening instruments to identify individuals with undiagnosed disorders, to monitor ongoing symptom severity, and to assess outcomes in clinical practice. Evernorth Behavioral Health makes validated instruments available for these purposes.
Resources for your patients
If you have patients who are coping with substance use – their own or that of a loved one – refer them to these helpful resources. They are available to all your patients at no charge.
- Substance Abuse and Pain Control webpages. Helpful information and resources for people about substance use. Go to Cigna.com > Knowledge Center > Wellness Library > Pain Control | Cigna and Substance Use Problems | Cigna.
- Online seminars. Free online seminars, led by a substance use expert, are open to anyone who wants to learn more about substance use. Go to Cigna.com > Personal > Health & Wellness > Behavioral Awareness Series > Coping With Substance Use > Coping with Substance Use Disorders.
- Preventing Opioid Use Disorder | Overdose Prevention | CDC: Helpful patient-centered information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Opioids: Know the Risks | Cigna Healthcare provides information to explain the dangers of opioids and what patients can do to manage pain safely.