May 11, 2026
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a new action plan focused on psychiatric prescribing practices. As part of the initiative, HHS agencies will review prescribing trends for psychiatric drugs, examining both their effectiveness and possible risks. The department also emphasized expanding the use of evidence-based, nonpharmacologic mental health treatments and other scalable care approaches.
According to HHS, the effort is intended to discourage inappropriate initiation of psychiatric medications while also supporting safe tapering or discontinuation for patients who are not seeing meaningful clinical improvement. The department outlined several forthcoming actions tied to the initiative, including educational outreach, policy and program development, and research-to-practice activities.
In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance for physicians and other practitioners on the importance of deprescribing and related medical care. This guidance clarifies how physicians and other practitioners can be paid for this type of care under Medicare and also directs clinicians to widely recognized resources for deprescribing, including professional society guidelines, peer-reviewed deprescribing protocols, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instructions for taper schedules.
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