The voice of AACAP members is essential to help protect the viability of telehealth moving forward. Decision makers need to hear from you about the possible harms to your practice and patients that would result from cutting off access to telepsychiatry.
The current DEA COVID-19 Public Health Emergency flexibility which allows prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth without an in-person visit will expire on December 31, 2024, after DEA twice extended this flexibility. It is impossible to pivot all patient care to in-person visits before the end of the year without an immediate impact on access to pediatric mental health care should this flexibility expire. We need your help to tell the Administration and Congress to protect telepsychiatry.
AACAP has asked the DEA, White House, and Congress to ensure access to mental health care is not restricted in January and to extend the current flexibility allowing prescribing of a controlled substance via telehealth without an initial in-person visit for two years, beginning January 1, 2025. Find AACAP's letters and AACAP's statement on the need to protect access to telepsychiatry on AACAP’s website.
It is imperative that physicians are given the ability to determine what modality of care is best for their patient, telehealth or in-person, and the White House and Congress need to hear from child and adolescent psychiatrists about how disallowing prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth would impact your practice and patient care. Physicians and patients alike want to maintain access to telehealth.
The DEA is drafting regulations that would regulate the prescribing of controlled substances via telehealth, but time is running out to implement any new regulation before the current DEA flexibility expires. And recent reports indicate what the DEA may release could be unworkable for psychiatry, jeopardizing all telepsychiatry. Further, absent any new regulations, and without Congressional intervention, pre-COVID-19 DEA regulations would be in place January 1, which require at least one in-person visit to establish a physician-patient relationship prior to any controlled substance prescribing.
Please help by sending an editable, pre-written message today about the value of telepsychiatry and why we cannot allow the DEA to harm access to mental health care due to inaction or unworkable regulations.