77. ADHD Unlocked: Earn CME Credit

Would you be surprised to learn that there has been a MAJOR INCREASE in child mental health visits in primary care?  A recent study published in JAMA Network Open found clinically significant increases in child mental health visits over a 10-year period.  While ADHD remained the most common MH concern, ANXIETY visits rose by 300% from 2014-2023. 

We know that it can be challenging and sometimes nearly impossible to connect these children and families with specialty child mental health care.  AND we know that families often PREFER to receive care from their trusted pediatric clinician in the comfort of their medical home.  

To support YOU and other pediatric clinicians, we are excited to announce the launch of our new Pediatric Mental Health CME Toolkit - Cracking the ADHD Code: Essentials for Pediatric Clinicians. 

Available online at:

https://ce.nemours.org/content/podcast-series-cracking-adhd-code-essential-skills-pediatric-clinicians#group-tabs-node-course-default1

This on-demand, AUDIO-BASED course features 5 mini-modules on:

• ADHD Evaluation Essentials
• ADHD Differential Diagnosis: Recognizing Comorbidities and Look-Alikes (Anxiety, Traumatic Stress, mood disorders like BIPOLAR)
• ADHD TREATMENT: Stepwise approach to treatment with stimulants, managing side effects, addressing common parental concerns
• ADHD with ANXIETY TREATMENT: Which to treat first? Algorithmic approach to choosing medications, including stimulants and non-stimulant medications (alpha-agonists, norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors)
• Advanced ADHD Treatment: What to do when meds stop working

In addition, we have downloadable clinical tools, patient handouts, clinical pearls that you can use the next day in your office! We hope you check out the course and share it with a friend!

Pediatric Mental Health CME Toolkit - Cracking the ADHD Code: Essentials for Pediatric Clinicians. 

https://ce.nemours.org/content/podcast-series-cracking-adhd-code-essential-skills-pediatric-clinicians#group-tabs-node-course-default1

Study: Pediatric Primary Care Visits with Mental Health Needs by Dr. Gallagher KM et al available online at: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2849123

Check out our website PsychEd4Peds.com for more resources!
Follow us on Instagram @psyched4peds

Check out our NEW CME Audio-based, on-demand CME Course online at:

Pediatric Mental Health CME Toolkit - Cracking the ADHD Code: Essentials for Pediatric Clinicians. 

https://ce.nemours.org/content/podcast-series-cracking-adhd-code-essential-skills-pediatric-clinicians#group-tabs-node-course-default1

Transcript

Dr. Elise Fallucco 0:00

Welcome back to Child Mental Health for Pediatric Clinicians. I'm your host, Dr. Elise Fallucco, child psychiatrist and mom Today I'm really excited to talk to you guys about some child mental health news and most importantly, some new resources, that may be able to help you in your practice Now, some of this news is gonna feel very obvious to you, but the big headline is that Over the past decade or so, we've seen major, major increases in child mental health visits in pediatric primary care So what that means is that those of you who are pediatric primary care clinicians are seeing an unprecedented number of kids with mental health problems Now, I know you didn't need a study to tell you this because many of you are living this reality. Your schedules are packed with more mental health visits than before, oftentimes crowding out time for non-mental health sick visits or even well visits. But if there's anybody who's listening who does not know or believe that we're in the middle of a child mental health crisis, I wanted to be able to share some hot-off-the-press findings from a great article published last month, May 2026, in JAMA Network Open. This study looked at all of the pediatric primary care visits in the state of Massachusetts across a decade, and there were three things that they found. In this study of nearly two million children and adolescents statewide, they found that pediatric primary care clinicians are seeing dramatically more kids for mental health visits than they had been about 10 years ago The second major finding Is that the most common mental health need or reason for children visiting pediatric primary care is related to ADHD. So this should not be a surprise to many of you, but this third finding I think may surprise you. So the third finding is that there were major increases in visits for childhood anxiety. They found a 300% relative increase of child anxiety visits over the 10-year period, such that at the end of the study, anxiety visits were nearly as common as ADHD. Whoa, what is happening? And I know a lot of you are thinking, Well, this is all related to COVID," but this study predated that. It was about 2014 to 2023, and they saw major increases in anxiety and in all mental health visits even prior to 2020 Again, I know that many of you are living this reality, and so it may not be news, but sometimes it's helpful to be able to know that you are not alone And that this phenomenon is not limited to your practice So to recap, we have major increases in kids presenting for mental health problems, kids and teens, and specifically lots of ADHD and now a ton of anxiety as well. So in a perfect world, we would be able to refer all of these patients and families to get high-quality therapy and/or for evaluation and treatment by a child psychiatrist, and they would be able to be seen very swiftly without a long wait, and their insurance would cover it. But now that we've woken up to reality, we know that we have limited access to child mental health specialists, and it leaves those of you primary care clinicians stuck kind of holding the bag. You want what's best for these kids. You've identified problems. You recognize them, but you can't get them access to specialty care. Furthermore, these families know you. They trust you. You have been the one who's been taking care of their kid since they were a baby in many cases. And frankly, a lot of these families would feel much more comfortable trusting their child's care to you than to seeing a child mental health specialist, especially with all the stigma attached to that. And yet While mental health has become an increasing part of your practice, very few of you have had adequate support, resources, and training to be able to feel comfortable and competent diagnosing and treating the more complicated mental health problems. The ADHD plus anxiety The mental health issues with ongoing psychosocial stressors, plus or minus traumatic stress The mental health problem that has not responded to a trial of medication So here is where the good news comes in. The good news is that we at Child Mental Health for Pediatric Clinicians Podcast have been working hard behind the scenes to build something for you, a comprehensive audio-based course specifically designed to help you manage these more complicated cases of ADHD plus or minus anxiety, plus or minus not responding well to meds, plus or minus parents who have a lot of legitimate concerns about what treatment looks like for mental health problems. And this course, which we have called Cracking the ADHD Code Essentials for Pediatric Clinicians, you can listen to during your commute While you're going for your post-clinic walk And it comes with a number of downloadable, helpful child mental health tools, algorithms, handouts, and clinical pearls that you'll be able to use the next day in your practice And even better, we have partnered with Nemours Children's Health to be able to offer you continuing medical education credit for this on-demand course And we have made sure that this CME or continuing ed credit It's available for physicians and for all of our advanced practice providers. So I wanna tell you a little bit more about the course 'cause we've been working really hard on this, and I'm very excited about it. As I mentioned before, it's entirely audio-based And it consists of five mini modules The first two are really about ADHD essentials, differential diagnosis, and evaluation. So we provide a structured clinical approach to the patient with possible ADHD. We talk about practical questions you can ask to quickly figure out what you need to know to be able to determine treatment or evaluate response to treatment We also talk about addressing common misconceptions about ADHD with patients and with family members And importantly, we talk about the more complicated types of ADHD, meaning those kids who may also have a little bit of anxiety or potentially traumatic stress or even mood disorders, and how you can identify these signs early in treatment to make sure that your patient gets the right care So the first two modules are about the ADHD essentials, evaluation, differential diagnosis. The last three modules are all focused on treatment and the treatment is beyond the basics. So we start with sharing a stepwise treatment plan for ADHD, answering questions like which stimulant do you use when You have a patient who already has appetite problems When do you consider using non-stimulant medicines like the alpha agonists or even some of the newer meds like the norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors? How do you address the parental concerns about meds? How do you treat ADHD with anxiety? How do you approach both diagnoses? Which comes first? How does treatment change when you've got a patient with, as we found out, two of the most common mental health concerns in primary care? And then finally, we have what do you do when meds stop working? As usual, we sprinkle in some fun mystery cases. This is chock-full of real world clinical issues and practical tips to help you in your 12 to 15 minute visits to get down to what matters, to address the most common challenges, and to feel comfortable managing kids with these common mental health problems This course is available through the Nemours website, ce.nemours.org, and also we have a link to it on our own website, psyched, the number four, peds.com. Both of those websites will be in our show notes. And for those of you who already subscribe to our newsletter, I'm gonna include a bunch of links in there too. I really hope you check it out, and I strongly encourage you to share this course with anybody who you think could benefit from practical, real world concise strategies for taking care of all of the kids with ADHD, with or without anxiety in your practice. Finally, before we close, I just wanted to take a little pause and get a tiny bit sentimental Today, our 77th episode marks a big milestone and anniversary for us at Child Mental Health for pediatric clinicians. It was about three years ago that we launched our first episode of the podcast, which just started as an idea, a way to be able to share the tips, strategies, and resources with a broader audience beyond where we currently live and practice. And I can't believe we've released this many episodes, and I'm so excited to have this new CME course to be able to share with you all And to be able to try to support all of you who are on the front lines taking care of these kids every single day. So a huge thanks to all of our loyal Child Mental Health, or formerly Psyched for Peds, listeners who have been with us. And a big thanks to all of you who are just joining now. We're real excited to have you as part of our community. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your downloads. Thank you for the messages you've sent me, the questions you've emailed me and our team And thanks to everybody who's been a huge part of this podcast, particularly Dr. Peggy Greco, pediatric psychologist, superhero editor and consultant who has been with us from the start and who has been a huge part of the behind-the-scenes production aspects of the podcast And thanks to all of our guests, supporters, consultants, and team of pediatric clinicians who have been advisors to us throughout the whole process, especially Dr. Wendy Sapolsky, Dr. Kim Del Porto, Dr. Chanley Dudley, and Dr. Annie Egan. So thanks again to everybody. Please check out the course either through our website, psyched, the number four, peds.com, or on ce.nemours.org. Just search for Podcast ADHD. Look forward to talking to you next week