HHS announces action plan on psychiatric ‘overprescribing’

The Department of Health and Human Services yesterday announced an action plan on psychiatric prescribing, including efforts to initiate deprescribing based on clinical indicators, “especially among children.” HHS said its agencies will evaluate prescription patterns for psychiatric medications, their benefits and potential harms, and “elevate the role of nonmedication treatments and scalable, evidence-based solutions to improve mental health.” The department said it is working to prevent unnecessary initiation of psychiatric medications and support tapering and discontinuation for individuals not experiencing any clinical benefit. HHS announced a series of upcoming activities on the matter regarding education and outreach, programming and policy efforts, and research-to-practice initiatives.