News

July 2009

Prevention Policy and Health-Care Reform to Reduce Psychotropic Use in Pediatrics
The United States has 2-3 times the percentage of children and youth using psychotropic medications, compared to other developed countries. The percentage of preschoolers being prescribed psychotropic medications in Medicaid has been doubling approximately every five years. The reported rates of past year non-prescribed (misuse and abuse of) stimulant use to range from 5% to 9% in grade school- and high school-age children and 5% to 35% in college-age individuals. The positive effects of many of such drug treatments for ADHD in particular do not apparently persist in well controlled studies. It is important to note that 26% of the children and youth on these medications are also receiving special education services. However, some evidence-based behavioral treatments at home or in school now do have long-term studies showing effects persisting into adulthood—for a fraction of the cost

Many insurers do not include coverage for psychosocial treatments for ADHD and other DSM-IV problems in their plans. They won't pay for the types of interventions that are most evidence-based. That's a problem; that's a public health problem that people at the state and national level need to work on.

The Institute of Medicine report on the Mental-Emotional-Behavioral Problems issued on March 25, 2009 cites two highly proven strategies can prevent or reduce mild to serious psychiatric disorders that account for much the child psychotropic medications—the Good Behavior Game for the classroom and the Triple P System for families. Despite the cost-efficiency of those strategies (i.e., the added marginal cost of about $15 per child in the population) to reduce DSM-IV disorders, these strategies are not paid for by any health-care plan in America.

We need to an enact a policy change that allows for third-party reimbursements using evidence-based behavioral strategies that cost-efficiently prevent or reduce DSM-IV or ICD codes, either for prevention, intervention or treatment. This is vital to health-care reform to keep the costs from continuing to spiral out of control. It is anticipated, based on high-quality studies, that this policy change could save billions of dollars per year in psychotropic medications plus other related social services expenses for lifetime conduct disorders, lifetime disabilities, lifetime lowered workplace productivity, and related health-care utilization rates.

To read the full article and see references click here.

March 2009

PAXIS Proposal for the Stimulus Package Impact Plan for Change: American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)

A report from the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine says the federal departments of Education, Justice, and Health and Human Services should align their resources and programs with a broad prevention. For more information click here.

February 2009

Licking County, Ohio announces the Our Futures effort rooted in proven KERNELS™