The Minnesota Department of Human Services has hired the Mayo Clinic to provide a new consult service to primary care physicians to help reduce questionable prescriptions of psychiatric drugs to children, according to a report today in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Physicians will be required to call the consult service prior to prescribing antipsychotic and certain other psychiatric drugs to children on Medicaid's publicly funded fee-for-service program, according to the paper. Mayo is collaborating with regional medical providers such as Sanford Health, Essentia Health and PrairieCare to create a network of psychiatrists capable of providing advice. Roughly $1.7 million in state and federal funding will cover the two-year program, which will start in August. State officials believe the cost will be offset by reduced hospitalizations of children whose psychotropic prescriptions either don't help or make them worse.
Doctors who prescribe against the advice of consulting psychiatrists won't get paid by the state for doing so.
For more information on the topic of antipsychotic use in children see Psychiatric News here.
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