We need to go to her just to refer us, rhan we go for an evaluation from someone who is the professional.

It’s especially frustrating when I do take my kid to the pediatrician for this evaluation and all they do is hand me two forms to fill out (one for me and one for her teacher). So all they’re doing is grading a test before they say yay or nay. How is this helpful?? Why can’t we just take our kids to a licensed professional specializing in child mental health to get this diagnosis?

A counselor doesn’t have a MD or PhD…which is required for a diagnosis. And if you want to see a specialist- get a referral for psych or neuropsych.

Bc of your insurance company policy. The PCP may have to refer you. An ER visit if your child is having a crisis may have the same effect. ER or hospital psychiatrist might give you a referral. If it doesn’t coming with a referral your insurance might not pay for it.

The only reason I could see you should need to go, is to do preemptive tests to see if there are risk factors for any medications they could take, or underlying conditions that could be mimicking it.

Because there are less than 1k board certified developmental/behavioral pediatricians in the US, serving about 20 million kiddos. General pediatricians are in the best position to diagnose if you can't get into a dev peds office.

When you say you “need to”, do you mean to get services at school, medication, or something else? Different training and licensure is required for different things.

I have ADD. My husband has ADD. I’ve seen the signs for my daughter since she was 5 when her pre-k teacher said she had trouble paying attention. Now her teachers for the last 3 years have said she has the same typical symptoms of inattentive ADD and I just want to get her help. Her Ped office is really busy and only one Ped can do the test. So I thought I could go around by just getting her in with a child psych but they don’t do diagnosis. I just want to help my kid.

I'm not sure if this is a state issue, but there shouldn't be anything stopping you from going directly to a psychologist or psychiatrist (although pediatric ones can be hard to find/extensive waiting lists). I help connect families to MH services and I usually recommend going through the PCP for ADHD because it's quicker and sidesteps an unnecessary extensive psych eval if the ADHD is obvious. Same thing for medication management.

Pediatric Psychiatrist should be able to diagnose and treat they are MD’s