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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
The FDA announced a shortage of Adderall in October that has only worsened across the country. The shortage is made worse by additional burdens such as prior authorization that prevent patients from speedily accessing the stimulant medications that are available.On a Sunday in June, Robin Weiss, M.D., a psychiatrist in Baltimore, was notified that there were problems filling Adderall prescriptions for two of her adult patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). One pharmacy had no Adderall available, so for about 20 minutes she spoke with the pharmacist to determine if one of the few stimulant medications that the pharmacy did have in stock would work for the patient.“The stimulant shortage is inextricably bound to prior authorization, which is another crisis in medicine,” said Robin Weiss, M.D.On the same day, Weiss received a fax communication from CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefit manager, that the double dose of 15 mg Adderall XR she had ordered for another patient was now on back order, with no estimated availability date. This was after the pharmacy benefit manager had required a cumbersome prior authorization process to allow two 15 mg tablets a day to substitute for the patient’s usual, equivalent dose of Adderall XR 30 mg a day, on which she had been stable for years. So now Weiss was back to the drawing board for this patient.“Multiply that by the number of patients I have on stimulants, and you have a good idea how time consuming this situation is,” said Weiss, a past president of the Maryland Psychiatric Society.For months, psychiatrists across the country have struggled to help their patients access their stimulant medications. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a shortage of Adderall in October 2022, but that shortage has spread to other stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Concerta, as psychiatrists and other physicians have been forced to switch their patients’ medications.The causes of the shortages are likely multifactorial. When the FDA announced the Adderall shortage, it was linked to manufacturing delays. But further issues may be influencing the ongoing shortage, including supply chain issues and an overall increase in stimulant prescriptions since the COVID-19 pandemic. In late March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that stimulant prescriptions spiked during the pandemic, particularly among women.As of June 6, the FDA’s drug shortage database stated that Adderall is currently available, but Teva, the medication’s manufacturer, is experiencing an unprecedented increase in
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