I'm reaching out on behalf of Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) with concerns around the Safe Use of Opioids eCQM. HSS is an orthopedic specialty hospital doing a high volume of elective surgeries. 
 
In monitoring the Safe Use of Opioids eCQM, we have found that 57% of patients with concurrent prescribing are those already prescribed benzodiazepines when they come to the hospital. Although the majority of these are not concurrently prescribed medications during an admission at our institution; at discharge, after a thorough medication reconciliation process, we continue their previous home medications accordingly. In terms of the eCQM specification, this appears as concurrent prescribing. Although we are following best practice, this results in our rates seeming higher than average and we think this is compounded for specialty hospitals like ours with a primarily elective surgical population.
 
I'm wondering if there's any opportunity to modify the specifications to exclude these patients as this does not seem to fit the spirit of the measure. Please let me know if there's any help or guidance the HSS team can provide in guiding this work. Happy to organize a call to discuss if needed.