Bill would require parent consent and track children's drug reactions

Prescribers would give parents the drug’s FDA medication guide and review its risks before prescribing or giving a psychotropic drug to a child receiving medical assistance. This applies to psychotropic drugs prescribed or given to children under 18 who receive medical assistance. The guide must cover FDA-listed side effects and monitoring cautions, serious or life-threatening warnings, and risks specific to children and adolescents. A parent must sign written consent confirming they received and reviewed the guide and understand the drug’s risks. The prescriber must keep the consent and give a copy to the parent or guardian. The guide and signed consent must be provided before the drug is prescribed or given.

The health and environment secretary would maintain a secure website for reporting harmful reactions to psychotropic drugs given to children and send quarterly summaries to legislative committees. A child receiving medical assistance or the child’s parent could report a harmful reaction. The system would cover psychotropic drugs prescribed to children. The site would collect patient and reporter details, drug information, reaction types, and severity. Reports would be confidential and privileged and exempt from public records disclosure. Quarterly reports would summarize reactions by age, severity, and type. Information sent to committees must be grouped by age, gender, and race, without details that identify a person. Quarterly reports would begin on the first day of the 2027 legislative session. The confidentiality rule would expire July 1, 2031, unless lawmakers review and reenact it before then.

The health and environment secretary would send annual reports on the bill’s implementation, compliance, costs, and health outcomes to legislative committees. The reports would cover implementation, compliance statistics, fiscal analysis, and health outcomes related to sections 1 through 4. Annual reports would begin on the first day of the 2027 legislative session.