Autism Center Psychiatry and Medication Consultation Clinic

You and your child will meet with one of our psychiatrists or psychiatric nurse practitioners to talk about treatment options to improve your child’s symptoms. We may take your child’s weight, height and blood pressure.

Part of the evaluation may include a discussion about medicines with you and your child’s primary care provider. Our goal is to help your child get started on the right treatment and return to their primary care provider or community mental health provider for ongoing management.

We usually do not give prescription medicines at the first visit. Decisions about prescribing are based on these things:

• Your child’s symptoms
• Information from your child’s records and questionnaires
• Other medical conditions your child has
• The risks and benefits of prescribing medicine
• Availability of other non-medicine treatment options for your child

• Fill out all the questionnaires we gave to you and return them at least 1 week before your next visit. Please keep a copy for your own records.
• Bring or send in any relevant evaluation records, prescription records or school reports.
• Bring in the bottles or a list or send in a list of any current medicines that your child is taking for any reason. Include all over-the-counter medicines, herbal medicines and vitamins your child takes.
• Bring or send in any relevant legal documents, such as guardianship, durable power of attorney or parenting plan. If you have a parenting plan, please call our office before the appointment to discuss what is needed for the visit.

All these providers are licensed to prescribe and manage psychiatric medicines:

• Psychiatrists
• General psychiatry residents, child and adolescent psychiatry fellows
• Psychiatric nurse practitioners

• Your provider will review your child’s prescription medicines with you. We will discuss how your child should take the medicines and when to return to clinic.
• It is important that your child has regularly scheduled appointments if your child is prescribed medicines.
• Please call the nurse line at 206-987-7149 or send a message through MyChart if you have any questions about your child’s medicine or if your child needs a prescription refill before their next visit. Please allow at least 7 days for refill authorizations.

This will vary based on your child’s symptoms and the evaluation by our psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner.

• Short-term consultation: We will transition your child’s care back to their primary care provider after just a few visits.
• Short-term consultation with medicine management: In some cases, we may need to see your child for more visits to manage their medicines. We will then transition your child back to their primary care provider or mental health provider in the community.

We will provide written treatment options to you and the provider who referred you to us.

Call 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) or 911 if your child is experiencing a safety risk. This may include active suicidal thoughts or severe agitation/ aggressive behavior.

• Keep your child’s care information updated.
• Follow the treatment plan or tell us if you are unable to follow it.
• Follow up as recommended and let us know as soon as possible if you cannot make an appointment.