“Encourage your young adult to start managing their own medicine, as well as ordering medicine refills.”Till now, as the parent, you’ve been in the driver’s seat. Much changes after your teen turns eighteen. With the patient privacy laws, you will no longer be able to make therapy or psychiatry appointments for your teen. You can’t even cancel appointments. Ask your teen to sign a form at the doctor’s office, giving you permission to do these things as well as permission to speak to the doctor about their care.
If you do find yourself in a position where you don’t have permission forms signed, you can still give information to the doctor. For example, let’s say your teen is at college and has been referred to a new psychiatrist but has not signed the permission forms. You can call the doctor’s office and leave a message saying that you realize he cannot call you back, but that you are faxing over a copy of your child’s medicine log. The psychiatrist can listen to your message and look at the information you’ve faxed over without violating any privacy laws. He just can’t acknowledge receipt of them or give you information.
Your young adult will likely choose to remain with the same therapist and psychiatrist. If they are still on your health insurance, order an insurance card for them to keep in their wallet. Have them start making their own appointments. Encourage your young adult to start managing their own medicine, as well as ordering medicine refills. There are a couple different ways to handle medicine refills. They can fill prescriptions at a nearby pharmacy or your health insurance plan may offer a mail order option, whereby they get a 90-day supply of medicine and pay a lower co-payment. This can be helpful to the young person who doesn’t want to deal with monthly refills. Some of the mail order pharmacies offer the convenience of an automatic refill, faxing the doctor on their own when refills run out. This can keep a steady supply of medicine coming their way.
Try to help your teen establish an emergency supply of medicine in case they are caught off guard and run out of medicine. If you live nearby, you can keep an emergency supply at home as well. Some college students keep a small safe in their dormitory, in which they keep their medicine and money.
“…sadness is brief, but depression lingers for two weeks or longer.”