Mental Health Services

If you are currently under the care of a psychiatrist at home, we recommend continuing care with your psychiatrist or establishing ongoing care with a psychiatrist in the Rochester community. 

Long-term counseling is outside of the scope of our practice. The Student Health Center has a psychiatrist on staff available for consultation regarding more complex cases. Case Management can facilitate students connecting with psychiatric providers in the area.

Students Previously Diagnosed with ADD/ADHD:
If you have previously been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and are stable on medication prescribed by your provider, you should continue obtaining the prescription(s) from your provider. New York State has no exclusions on prescriptions for controlled substances from outside of the state, therefore your provider can send your prescription to a local pharmacy for pick up or delivery.

If you are interested in having your prescription(s) delivered to the Student Health Center from a local Wegmans pharmacy, click here to learn more and register.
 

If you're experiencing issues with continued medication from your provider:
If you have tried to obtain the prescription(s) from your provider and have experienced issues, you can seek approval to receive ADD/ADHD care at the Student Health Center. To do this, you must obtain records from your home provider and upload them to the RIT Wellness Portal for review. Records must include ALL of the following:

• A copy of the initial diagnostic evaluation - must be completed  by a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, or a doctorate level psychologist. Evaluation by primary care doctor including standardized evaluations and long term care history are acceptable in some cases. Online or telehealth evaluations are not sufficient.

• Treatment history - including medication history (at least 6 months)

• Treatment plan - what your current provider anticipates going forward, including dosage of current medication

After submission, the Student Health Center clinic staff will review your records (which can take up to 6 weeks) and communicate with you by secure message in the RIT Wellness Portal. If there is insufficient information for us to be clear about diagnosis and treatment plans, we will provide information regarding other local providers including information for diagnostic testing (if desired). If we have received sufficient information, we will send you a secure message in the RIT Wellness Portal to schedule an appointment with the Student Health Center to review care expectations and the risks/benefits of continued treatment.

Please note: If a controlled medication is suitable, you must sign a Controlled Medication Agreement, provide a urine sample, and the Student Health Center must receive acceptable results from your urine sample before a medication can be prescribed.

New Diagnosis of ADHD

RIT’s Integrated Health Services is unable to provide ADHD evaluations. If a student has been newly diagnosed with ADHD and is now desiring medication, we strongly encourage them to work with their home provider or RIT Case Management to connect with an off campus provider to receive services outside of RIT. In the event that is not possible, students may upload or have their provider fax information (585-475-7788) regarding their diagnosis for review.  

Once documentation is submitted, it will take up to 6 weeks to review. After review, Health Center staff will send a secure message advising whether those records meet our standard for diagnosis and whether the needs are too complex for our primary care- college health practice. If the care is outside of our scope, we can provide referrals to psychiatrists in the Rochester area. If the documentation meets the standards to be seen at the SHC, a consultation would be scheduled with one of the SHC clinicians. At that visit the RIT policies would be reviewed. We cannot guarantee medication initiation.

The psychological evaluation must have been completed in person within the past three years by a PhD or PsyD clinician. The evaluation must include a clinical interview and objective assessments that cover the following:

• History of onset and course of symptoms, including functional impairment
• Observer information (e.g., from a parent, partner, mental health provider, or other)
• Documentation that other possible comorbid disorders (e.g. anxiety, trauma, bipolar spectrum, learning disorders, hearing/sleeping disorders, etc.) have been considered
• At least one objective assessment measure of attention and executive function (e.g. TOVA, CPT, Trails, Stroop, D-KEFS, BDEFS, Brief Test of Attention, or comparable). 
• At least one self-report symptom checklist with validity scales (e.g. Conners, Brown, Vanderbilt, or comparable)
• At least one objective assessment measures of emotional function (e.g. PAI, MMPI-2, Millon, BDI-II, BAI, or comparable)
• Diagnostic statement and recommendations