Economic Grand Rounds: Economic Costs of Failure to Monitor Adverse Effects of Second-Generation Antipsychotics: An Underestimated Factor

Since 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as well as the American Diabetes Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and others have called for routine monitoring of cardiometabolic risk factors for patients of all ages prescribed second-generation antipsychotic medications. This survey of major public and private mental health treatment systems in 2010 found that adherence to such guidelines was limited. The authors describe some of the impediments to widespread monitoring of cardiometabolic risk factors among psychiatric patients taking second-generation antipsychotics and advocate for a nationwide commitment to providing the organizational and financial supports necessary to ensure systematic screening of cardiometabolic health among such patients. (Psychiatric Services 63:202–204, 2012; doi: 10.1176/appi.ps.20120p202)