Rx Medicaid Managed Care Draws Mental Health Concerns

Big changes in Rhode Island's Medicaid formulary are raising big concerns among mental health advocates. The General Assembly authorized the state Department of Human Services to create a preferred drug list that would limit the drugs covered by Medicaid and switch patients to generics whenever possible. The DHS sought public feedback in a hearing last week. Advocates for the mentally ill pleaded to exclude mental-illness medications from the new regulations. A preferred drug list could have a "devastating" effect because it would "force physicians to choose medications that they otherwise would not prescribe," Chaz Gross, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Rhode Island, said at the hearing. Though anti-psychotics are specifically excluded under the new law, the advocates also are seeking to exempt antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, and anti-convulsants.