general practice pediatrician willing to prescribe ADHD meds (DC preferred)
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Anonymous
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Hello,
does anyone know of regular ped who is willing to do an assessment for ADHD and then a trial of meds? I am pretty certain DD has it. Have not gotten anywhere with school. Would like to try something sooner. Wait time for the dev ped is 9 months and cannot afford private eval. Thanks. |
Anonymous
| how old is she? |
Anonymous
| 10. thanks. |
Anonymous
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I preferred to wait to get an accurate evaluation, and receive expert medication advice from a psychiatrist. A general ped is not an expert, can mis-diagnose your child, and fail to pick the right medication, at the right dose, for your child. It can be tricky, because different children react differently and can have a host of side-effects. |
Anonymous
| My pediatrician is not willing to prescribe without seeing a neuropsych evaluation. Getting one was helpful because it confirmed the diagnosis but also addressed strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. |
Anonymous
| Could you get into a neurologist? My first choice for ADHD meds would be a child psychiatrist, but they are hard to find in network. A neurologist might be easier and faster to get an appointment. |
Anonymous
Yup. OP, honestly, it just sounds like you are trolling for drugs. You'll probably get more insurance coverage going through KKI or Children's. Search NIH clinical trails, if you're actually serious about helping your kid. |
Anonymous
| There are psychiatrists who just do meds management - start there. It's not simple and I wouldn't trust a ped for this. |
Anonymous
| The public school will do educational testing for free. |
Anonymous
Not OP, but you're totally right, a parent with a desire not wait 9 months to address something that is treatable and one assumes (given the desire to address) interfering with home and/or school is totally just a drug troll who isn't even remotely serious about helping his/her kid. ??? Let's try something like, OP, yes there might be pediatricians out there who can trial meds. Probably a good idea to see if you can't get in with a psychiatrist first though, since often more expertise is needed. But I totally recognize that mental health care in this country, particularly on insurance, sucks and so it's sometimes virtually impossible to find a child psychiatrist on a reasonable timeframe. Probably a good idea in that case to get on waitlists, for children's and KKI and psychiatrists, so you can grab whatever comes up first, and also maybe try XYZ because I'm a decent human being whose trying to be helpful so let me throw out some actual ideas you can use without being a total twit. Anyway, OP.... Georgetown psychiatry is accepting new kids for ADHD stuff, may likely be on your insurance, the key is that you need to call when they open their calendar for the next month or so - I think that's at the beginning of the month. I forget how far out it is, but it's not even close to a 9 month wait. Might be an idea to try. Same with children's. You can also see if there are any in network child psychiatrists accepting new patients - we couldn't find one, but our network is pretty awful. For peds, CP&A in DC has a child psychologist they work for - not sure if she'd diagnose at the least, and then maybe they'd be willing to trial meds - but she's on maternity leave. May be worth a call to see if they have someone filling in. The pediatrician herself there wouldn't consider diagnosis/meds for us directly, but we're on the very young side, so that made sense, and they suggested we start with their psych (we got into KKI just after that, so never ended up doing that). An ADHD eval out of pocket with a psychiatrist may also be much less expensive than one of the developmental peds, I don't know. Not sure if there's any ability to cover anything OOP. Also worth getting on the wait/cancellation lists for some of the longer wait places - we got into KKI within 2-3 months, but got 3 cancellation calls before we got one we could take so conceivably could have been sooner. You may also be able to get in back door - say, by starting with their behavioral psych department in Columbia, who obviously can't prescribe (I think), but once you're in their system, the wait for someone who can may be much shorter. We started with behavioral psych and saw a developmental ped within 2 weeks of that first appointment. Might be worth a call to ask if that's an option - if you see beh psych (for some intervention ideas, I'd not say out front its just to back door things) and they think an eval or look at treatment is warranted, can they do a referral in a quicker period of time? Given the distance, KKI will likely seek ultimately to transfer you back to your ped (they are with us) but only once meds are settled, at which point you've gotten some of the expertise and your ped has some assurance - if they're unwilling to do initial eval and medication trial themselves - that someone with the expertise has set up the program. It's a PITA, that's for sure, and really shouldn't take so long to get some decent help, it's definitely a huge issue. |
Anonymous
Our neuropsych referred us to a psychiatrist and the wait was less than a month. The psychiatrist wants to refer us to our pediatrician since the med he prescribed is working beautifully and we will only need to see him twice a yr from now on instead of every 6-8 wks. I am not comfortable letting our ped take over the med management however so we are going to continue seeing the psychiatrist. Since your child is ten, you need to get a full neuropsych eval for an ADHD diagnosis and not a checklist diagnosis. Kids with ADHD in high school need to provide a current, less than three yr old, neuropsych eval for testing accommodations for the SAT and the like. Doubtful you will find a ped who will write a Rx for ADHD meds for a 10 yo without a neuropsych eval. |
Anonymous
| OP, you should also check your insurance coverage. Ours (United Healthcare) characterizes ADHD as a behavioral health issue, and requires us to see a psychiatrist for meds. |
Anonymous
what has your daughter's regular ped said? |
Anonymous
I also have UHC and we do not have to go to a psychiatrist. Our ped diagnosed my son and prescribes medication. The practice is Pediatric and Adolescent Care of Silver Spring. They have done an excellent job with my son. |
Anonymous
| We paid out of pocket for the assessment, sent it to my son's regular pediatrician, and she passed it on to the pediatrician in their group (there are five of them) who does a lot of these cases. DS is responding well to basic ADHD meds and doesn't have any comorbidities -- just inattentive ADHD, which is responsive to stimulant meds. If his needs or his treatment were more complex, we would have gone to a psychiatrist. My other son has a host of issues in addition to ADHD (depression, anxiety, etc.) so we pay out of pocket for a specialist. It is very nice for us to have the one kid being treated at the ped's office, besides being in-network they are open every day so I can stop by to pick up his monthly Rx when it is convenient, etc. |