To think £290 for my prescription is insane?!

[Justintimeee]

Posting here for traffic

I was diagnosed with ADHD 18 months ago and have been receiving monthly medication since.

I have been having follow up zoom calls with my psychiatrist every 6 weeks at a cost of £170. On top of that, to actually have the prescription written is £25 and the meds themselves are £95 so it is a huge cost for me.

The meds have completely turned my life around so I really do not want to go back to life without them.

The issue is, I can no longer afford to pay for the £170 follow ups so regularly. I have asked for a prescription but it has been refused if I don't book a follow up so I am at a loss... I had no idea they were mandatory for me to get medication when I have been diagnosed.

Do I just find another doctor? Is it the same everywhere? I have been refused shared care due to some NHS rules against accepting patients from private ADHD doctors so I don't know what to do.

I am in Essex if it helps.

Symptoms do need to be present in childhood but not every child with ADHD has a CAMHS referral (don’t meet the threshold, don’t have observant grown ups, etc) so that wouldn’t be a reliable source for adult diagnosis.

For my NHS diagnosis you were asked to bring school reports or a letter from a parent/guardian if you no longer had them. I had reports still so I scanned them all and the psychiatrist reviewed them before my next appointment. I was diagnosed with severe ADHD, the signs were very clear in my reports but it was the 90s/00s when girls were under diagnosed.

I was “lucky” and only waited 2 years - I was part of a trial for a new process to speed up diagnosis in my area. I go to a neurodiversities support group and there are people waiting for diagnosis now who’ve been told to expect a wait of 4+ years.

This is another reason why nhs is best
People are too accepting of private health care. It Doesn’t provide better care ! Just a lot more expensive

Do you know if the private provider is on an NHS approved list.
The best thing I can recommend it to request your GP to refer to your local NHS ADHD service and provide a copy of your private assessment.
The waits are likely to be long though so this won't help in the short term.
Our local service will take individuals on for annual medication reviews and shared care with GP if private assessment was from an approved provider. Even this route waits are around 12-18 months. If assessment is not an approved provided they will reassess to confirm diagnosis. Waits for this route are about 3 years unfortunately. Waits vary hugely by area and I am aware of 5-7 year Waits in some areas.
Not a quick fix but would help secure medication prescribing on NHS in long term.
In the shorter term it may be worth exploring alternative private providers to see if any can offer prescribing woth lower costs?
Good luck.

@Allywill if you got the diagnosis from an approved dr (like bupa etc) it will be fine. A lot of people go through “private diagnosis” but it’s just a person with no real qualifications making a diagnosis on ADHD. They’ve been cited as one of the reasons for the supposed adhd epidemic - most people have a few symptoms of adhd naturally, it doesn’t mean they have adhd but these people are diagnosing everyone for a price.

I have heard that gps are getting a lot of pressure from parents to diagnose autism,adhd etc because it then gives them a carers allowance, this may make them sceptical or they may be facing pressure to reduce such diagnosis .

Yes I'm aware, I did say some will have slipped through the net.

I'm glad you're getting support.

@Feraldogmum youre talking out your arse. GPs cannot diagnose autism or ADHD, and you don’t get carers allowance for either unless the individual has a high level of care needs.

I’d advise anyone to get their facts from reliable sources and not from someone with a username that alludes to owning out of control dangerous dogs.

If you're 'rich' enough to buy a diagnosis, that's the price you'll pay. Join the queue and wait like everyone else.

I'm fairly sure I have ADHD, son is diagnosed and I recognise so many signs and symptoms now. I can cope with life without meds. Yes, your meds are 'life changing', but as as adult, you can just deal without them as you presumable did before.

I'm afraid I don't have much sympathy. Just smacks of rich people thinking money can buy them an easier ride.

I went private and am now under shared care, but I was VERY careful about who I went to for my assessment and made sure it was a company that also treats NHS patients and uses fully qualified psychiatrists. Private diagnoses are a nightmare and certain private companies (coughADHD360cough) are using a "grey area" in the NICE guidelines to enable unqualified people who have only undertaken company training to diagnose ADHD. This is why there can be a reluctance to undertake shared care, even from reputable companies in some areas.

In your case, I think your only option is to go onto the NHS waiting list and continue to go private in the meantime. If you really can't afford it, you'll need to consider coming off the medication - you could try to manage it through other, potentially cheaper, non-medication means like CBT though I completely understand why you wouldn't want to.

The whole situation for people with ADHD in the UK is far from ideal. NHS waiting lists are insane and predatory private companies are giving out diagnoses which trap people into continuing to pay for their consultations and prescriptions. There's the medication shortage on top as well. It's shit.

That's really unfair. Many people (myself included) go into serious debt in order to fund diagnoses and treatment because our quality of life is that bad. I sought treatment because even though I had coped "fine" for many years, events in my life brought me to crisis point and I was no longer "fine". If you're coping even though you have ADHD then good for you (I'd wager that if you're coping that well, though, then you don't have it).

One of my family had to do the same to get treatment for her son. We are not rich, we do not have this money to spare, but we scrape it together with the hope that it's short term and we can go onto shared care in the future and eventually pay it back.

Heard from the Daily Mail or Daily Express?

As other poster have said, this is utter bollocks.

I started meds 18 months ago. It was monthly during titration, then 2 x 3 monthly checks, now I'm on annual reviews. 6 weekly is excessive if you're stable!

Unfortunately, private prescriptions are charged at cost, vs flat rate for NHS prescriptions. It can sometime work out cheaper though. Have you checked to see whether there is a generic drug available? Branded ones can be a lot more expensive.

You’re still not getting that those situations were different from the OPs.

As for “you asked first” - remember that GPs can refuse to refer you. Right to choose doesn’t mean you have a right to be assessed. The GP still decides. It’s hypothetically possible that if the OP (or anyone else) had gone to their GP, the GP may have refused to refer as they didn’t think the OP met the criteria.

@Justintimeee I agree with previous advice of asking your psych why you need the 6 weekly reviews and for how long. Tbh I think it could be a sign they’re milking you for money, but they may have good reason.

Because the private doctors are charging £170 every 6 weeks… of course they’re going to “diagnose” more people 😂💰💰💰

See if your GP surgery will accept the private prescription and convert it to an NHS one (ideally on repeat).
I've had to see a dermatologist privately recently. He gave me, over the course of about a year, several prescriptions for different drugs. Each was a private prescription.
However, on each occasion I was able to take the script to my GP and get them to issue an NHS prescription on repeat.
There may have been a small fee but if so, it wasn't a lot.

I don’t have any advice (sorry) but I am in the same position.

my NHS GP will not not take on the prescription for various spurious reasons and the private psychiatrist will not prescribe without a meeting (currently £150).

cost of filling prescription costs between £80 and £195 depending on pharmacy (I have found Tesco to be cheapest) which is also nuts.

it is difficult to manage 🙁

Refer yourself to the adult mental health team and tell them you can’t cope without the medication. You shouldn’t have to pay for a private prescription.

My daughter was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder via a private psychiatrist who prescribed meds for her (I think they were £80pp). When I asked if these could be prescrived via the NHS, he wrote a letter to her GP requesting the meds be prescribed on a repeat basis. The GP was happy to fulfil this and she's had them on NHS repeat prescription for about 2 years now.

Might be with a try with yours.

If only it were that simple. Currently a 2 year wait to get assessed to get on a waiting list in my area

Are the drugs available on the nhs ?

You can go to them if so and ask for a prescription.

We did this with dd for her depression . Paid a psychiatrist who prescribed an ssri and then paid the first prescription and after that transferred it to the nhs . I saved them money as they wouldn't help via camhs 🤷‍♀️.. have you asked ?

Not possible with ADHD meds as most of the first line options are controlled drugs.

SSRIs are very different.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow fair enough but not sure if the op knew she could ask

If you are stable, could your ongoing care a scripts not be transferred to the NHS and your GP.?

It’s in the original post that the OP can’t get it through their GP as the GP won’t do shared care with a private psych.