Overview
- Kennedy’s HHS, which unveiled the plan Monday at a MAHA Institute summit, set out to cut reliance on SSRIs and other psych drugs with a special focus on use in children.
- A Dear Colleague letter tells clinicians to offer nonmedication care such as therapy, exercise, nutrition, and family support, to reassess prescriptions, and to deprescribe with supervised tapers when it is appropriate.
- CMS released billing guidance so providers can be paid for deprescribing work that includes care planning, withdrawal monitoring, treatment coordination, and tracking patient outcomes.
- SAMHSA plans a prescribing-trends report this month and webinars in June and July on side effects and tapering, and HHS will convene a July expert panel to shape clinical guidance on discontinuation.
- The American Psychiatric Association backs more training and research but rejects framing the crisis as mainly overmedicalization, and experts warn Kennedy’s past unsupported claims about SSRIs could deter needed care if messaging is not careful.