I used online telehealth (through a more legit provider) to seek treatment for ADHD just because before COVID, it was very hard to find psychiatric services that catered to adult ADHD.
The same is true for many others I’ve talked to: they had been meaning to seek adhd treatment for a while (and in many cases had done so, only to be diagnosed with depression, or to be told that they were doing well enough in life that they didn’t need treatment) but it was such a daunting process that most hadn’t gone through with it.
There are of course perverse incentives when it comes to these kinds of businesses (nobody would use them if they were extremely stingy), so they do need to be held to a standard that prevents them from just becoming pill mills. OTOH I think the cost/benefit to society is maximized when barriers to care are lower than what they were pre-telehealth, even if it means some people are just going to abuse the system, especially with adhd meds which are not that addictive or harmful, contrary to popular opinion (that stereotype comes from much more hardcore stuff like smoking and injecting large amounts of meth) - compared to opiates or benzos it’s really no contest that prescription stimulants are less problematic and less addictive.
What concerns me is that so many pundits are listening to the DEA bozos that all the stimulant shortage (which, btw, impacts people who have been stable on adhd meds for decades almost as much as those who only started treatment during the pandemic) is due to the increase in diagnoses from telehealth, when in fact it’s due to arbitrary production quotas set by the DEA that can easily be raised. The fact we let the DEA determine how much of a prescription medicine can be made, allowing formal and above board medical care to be impacted, is absolutely insane to me.
This is literally the war on drugs preventing longtime patients from getting the care they’ve been relying on for decades, just because it became easier to get treatment. The attitude should be that 5 abusers are a small price to pay for 1 legitimate patient getting the care they need, not that 5 abusers need to be stopped so bad that 20 legitimate patients go without treatment.
The same is true for many others I’ve talked to: they had been meaning to seek adhd treatment for a while (and in many cases had done so, only to be diagnosed with depression, or to be told that they were doing well enough in life that they didn’t need treatment) but it was such a daunting process that most hadn’t gone through with it.
There are of course perverse incentives when it comes to these kinds of businesses (nobody would use them if they were extremely stingy), so they do need to be held to a standard that prevents them from just becoming pill mills. OTOH I think the cost/benefit to society is maximized when barriers to care are lower than what they were pre-telehealth, even if it means some people are just going to abuse the system, especially with adhd meds which are not that addictive or harmful, contrary to popular opinion (that stereotype comes from much more hardcore stuff like smoking and injecting large amounts of meth) - compared to opiates or benzos it’s really no contest that prescription stimulants are less problematic and less addictive.
What concerns me is that so many pundits are listening to the DEA bozos that all the stimulant shortage (which, btw, impacts people who have been stable on adhd meds for decades almost as much as those who only started treatment during the pandemic) is due to the increase in diagnoses from telehealth, when in fact it’s due to arbitrary production quotas set by the DEA that can easily be raised. The fact we let the DEA determine how much of a prescription medicine can be made, allowing formal and above board medical care to be impacted, is absolutely insane to me.
This is literally the war on drugs preventing longtime patients from getting the care they’ve been relying on for decades, just because it became easier to get treatment. The attitude should be that 5 abusers are a small price to pay for 1 legitimate patient getting the care they need, not that 5 abusers need to be stopped so bad that 20 legitimate patients go without treatment.