Don Teater, MD, MPH is a board-certified family physician who has practiced medicine for over 30 years. Since 2013 he has focused mostly on the treatment of pain and addiction. From 2013 to mid-2016, he worked as the Medical Advisor at the National Safety Council addressing the national epidemic of opioid abuse, addiction, and overdose. Dr. Teater was lead facilitator for the expert panel during the development of the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain 2016. He continues to work as a consultant with federal and state organizations. He also educates prescribers nationally on the appropriate treatment of pain and opioid use disorder. Don continues to see patients one day a week treating the disease of addiction via telemedicine from his home in Denver, CO to his patients in North Carolina. He is also a pain and addiction specialist for Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau, AK.

Jonathan Clapp, MD, MS received his medical degree from Rosalind Franklin University in Illinois.  He completed his residency in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and was chief resident at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.  He is triple board certified in PM&R, Pain Medicine and Addiction Medicine and has been practicing pain medicine in the Denver area since 2009.  He is currently Past-President of the Colorado Pain Society and former Chairman of the Colorado Medical Society’s Substance Use Disorder Committee. 

Jeffrey Gold, PharmD, BCPP is a psychiatric pharmacist and the psychiatric pharmacy residency director at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Rocky Mountain Regional Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado. After graduating from the Skaggs School of Pharmacy, he became the first pharmacist in the state of Colorado to have prescriptive authority in psychiatry. Dr. Gold has authored benzodiazepine taper guidelines, ran the benzodiazepine tapering clinic at the VA, as well as presented at several conferences about benzodiazepines, how to taper benzodiazepines, and how to manage complex situations involving benzodiazepines. He was the first non-physician to win the James Shore, MD, Teaching Award at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. He was also featured in the Netflix documentary, “Take Your Pills: Xanax.” 

Alexis Ritvo, MD, MPH, BA is a board-certified addiction psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at University of Colorado (CU) School of Medicine. She also serves as the Medical Director for the Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices. She has been the program director for the CU addiction psychiatry fellowship since July 2020. She is co-chair of the Benzodiazepine Action Work Group with the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse, which she co-founded with Dr. Steven Wright, the former medical director for the Alliance. She has a passion for psychotherapy, teaching and improving health systems and policies.

Timothy Flynn, PT, PhD, FAPTA is widely published with over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts on musculoskeletal disorders and chronic spinal pain. He has received numerous professional awards. Dr. Flynn is a past President of the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual Physical Therapists. He is a world-renowned clinician whose primary clientele includes clients suffering chronic disorders, failed surgeries, and chronic pain disorders.