News and Insights for Psychiatric Pharmacists

Calling all psychiatric pharmacist rising stars. Nominate yourself or others for the AAPP Early Practitioner Award designed to recognizes future leaders within AAPP and Psychiatric Pharmacy. Nominations close 10/1/2025.

AAPP is a sponsoring organization of the NIDA Mentor-Facilitated Training Awards (NIDA-MFT) which supports the development of expertise in SUD among early career investigators through the completion of a mentor-supervised project. Learn more about this opportunity at the link.

The Hawai'i Pharmacists Association (HPhA) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) announced the passage of SB 1245, an historic advancement that will recognize pharmacists as health care providers under Hawai'i law and ensure health plan reimbursement for services they provide within their scope of practice.

Advancing Patient Care Award application window is now open. Let’s recognize excellence in increasing patient access to high quality mental health care.

Collaborative care models with clinical pharmacist integration have demonstrated improved patient outcomes for hepatitis C virus screening and treatment. Get prepared to help underserved patient populations during this session, offered at the 2025 AAPP Summit. #psychpharm #bcpp #aapp

AAPP Urges Insurers to Maintain Vaccine Coverage

The Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, provides comprehensive health care to around 2.8 million American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) across 37 states belonging to 574 federally recognized tribes. The federal government established a special relationship with these tribes in 1787 to provide health services and raise their overall health status to the highest level.

Given the expanding role of GLP-1As in psychiatric treatment, psychiatric pharmacists should recognize appropriate patients for this medication class and explain both its benefits and risks. This session will discuss the differences in GLP-1As for weight loss treatment, risks, and creation of a treatment plan when using these agents in the setting of an eating disorder. #2025AAPPSummit #psychpharm #aapp #bcpp

The 1/9/25 #JournalClub article 1 presented "Comparative safety of in utero exposure to buprenorphine combined with Naloxone vs Buprenorphine alone." The recording is available free to all AAPP members.

New practitioners, residents, fellows, and students have an opportunity for grant funding up to $10,000! Applications are due by Sept. 4 for consideration.

This 2-hour webinar focuses on developing appropriate techniques for answering standardized questions more accurately, identifying common issues in testing that may be hurting your performance, and analyzing your testing performance to improve accuracy, pacing, and endurance. Level up your test-taking skills!

Psychiatric pharmacists need to understand where novel treatments like inhaled loxapine, dexmedetomidine sublingual film, or intranasal olanzapine fit into the treatement of agitation in high-risk patients. This topic will be presented during the 2025 AAPP Summit. Join us! #psychpharm #bcpp #aapp

Updated Post: AAPP Urges Insurers to Maintain Vaccine Coverage

Recognize change-makers who have impacted patient access to care and/or the profession of psychiatric pharmacy through their advocacy with policymakers and/or decision-makers. Nominations close 10/1/2025.

Other than clozapine, there are no clinical trials that clearly establish the superiority of one antipsychotic medication over another. Novel mechanisms help address gaps in care! Join us for this session during the 2025 AAPP Summit. #psychpharm #bcpp #aapp

The Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process (PPCP) is the foundation for the essential care that pharmacists provide to patients on a daily basis. Fifteen national pharmacy organizations have collaborated through the Joint Commission of Pharmacy Practitioners (JCPP) to revise the 2014 PPCP to reflect contemporary pharmacy practice today and into the future. These organizations are now seeking feedback on the revised draft PPCP from pharmacists across the profession to ensure that it is reflective of diverse pharmacy practice settings and the care being delivered. Your voice is important! Please contribute your feedback on or before 2/28 at 5 PM PT, by accessing the draft revised PPCP and a feedback survey. The estimated time to review the draft revised PPCP is 10 minutes, and the feedback survey is estimated to take up to 20 minutes to complete.

Applications for AAPP Awards and Fellowship are now open! Nominate yourself, a colleague, mentor, and/or rising stars as we spotlight pharmacy excellence.

The Lancet Psychiatry - Absolute neutrophil count and adverse drug reaction monitoring during clozapine treatment: consensus guidelines from a global Delphi panel

Improve your peer review skills! Discover the components to evaluate, the role of the peer reviewer, the skills necessary to critically evaluate a manuscript, and how to provide feedback to authors and journal editors.

Help AAPP recognize excellence in patient care through your nomination for the Advancing Patient Care award recognizing individual member efforts and accomplishments in increasing patient access to high quality mental health care in exceptional and distinctive ways. Nominations close 10/1/2025.

OIG surveyed behavioral health providers who actively served Medicare and Medicaid patients to assess whether they could make new patient appointments for enrollees in 2023. Some findings of the review include: 1) forty-five percent of surveyed providers reported that they were not available to treat new patients enrolled in traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid managed care, and 2) among the providers who were available to treat new patients enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid, about a quarter reported wait times of more than 30 days for an appointment. This report illustrates that enrollee access to needed behavioral health care is hampered by the inability of active providers to treat new patients.

AAPP is continuing its membership in the Get the Medications Right Institute (GTMRX) in 2025. GTMRX is focused on advancing recognition among providers and payors of the importance of systematic, evidence-based approaches to medications and their rationale use and the urgent need for payment and policy reform to advance access to and payment for person-centered CMM services.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is revising the labeling of all extended-release stimulants to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder to warn about the risk of weight loss and other side effects in patients younger than 6 years. The agency is requiring a “limitation of use” section in the prescribing information of all extended-release stimulants to include a statement on higher rates of adverse reactions in these young children. Extended-release stimulants are not approved for children below 6, but doctors can prescribe them “off label” to treat ADHD. The agency said it assessed data from clinical trials of extended-release formulations of amphetamine and methylphenidate for ADHD treatment, finding that, compared to older children, patients younger than 6 have higher levels of the drug in their bodies as well as higher rates of side effects. For these reasons, the benefits of extended-release stimulants may not outweigh the risks in patients younger than 6, according to the regulator.

Stand out by achieving the highest honor in psychiatric pharmacy by applying for AAPP Fellowship. Applications for FAAPP consideration close 10/1/2025.

As we enter into the season of pumpkin spice, football, and falling leaves, it’s my pleasure to reach out and say hello as your new AAPP President. On behalf of your AAPP Board of Directors, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to reflect on some of the progress we made this summer.

AAPP Student Chapters: This is your chance to get funding for your activities! Apply by Sept. 30 to receive up to $6,000.

"Better Together: Pharmacists and Laboratorians Advancing Care" is available free to all members through 9/18/25. This on-demand session explores how collaboration between pharmacists and laboratorians transforms patient care. Register now!

The cross-section study conducted in Los Angeles enrolled 50 participants >18 years of age with a primary languages of English and Spanish. Eighty percent of participants (n=40) had a score on the Wender-Utah Rating Scale (WURS) 25 (WURS-25) suggestive of a diagnosis of ADHD. Learn more about this study's results by viewing the poster presented at AAPP 2025. This study was funded in part by a Defining the Future grant from the AAPP Foundation. The application portal for 2025 submissions is now open and is now open to new practitioners. Learn more at aappf.org/grants/dtf

This free medication database provides a list of generic and brand name medications.

"As pharmacists, we have opportunities every day to be an advocate for our patients and a champion for our profession." Learn how Dr. Tanya Fabian is advocating for psychiatric pharmacists! #WIWIK #psychpharmacy #AAPP #advocacy #yourvoicematters