Over the past few years, the number of anti-psychotic drugs being prescribed to Tennessee children for attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder has skyrocketed. The TennCare bureau estimates it spends 20-million dollars per year on these drugs for 25-thousand children in east Tennessee alone.
As of the first of the year, TennCare is implementing a pilot project to see if it can provide better, more efficient, behavioral health care to these children.
The bureau is working with Magellan Health Services, its current behavioral health organization, to see if education about the proper use of anti-psychotics and better case management will help children. TennCare pharmacy director Dave Beshara says this should also curb the number of anti-psychotics prescribed.
“Although the patient might see some benefit for their ADHD, it’s going to have so many different side effects, that it might be better not to be on the medication. There are better tried and tested medications that have less side effects that work great in ADHD.”
Beshara says for children the side effects from anti-psychotics include weight gain and diabetes.
The project will take about eight months to complete. TennCare has enlisted the University of Tennessee to help with the data analysis, which worries some mental health advocates – since UT was also paid to look at drug usage patterns in the state, and never produced any reports on the issue.
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