Pediatricians recognize the importance of improving teen mental health and their pivotal role in identifying adolescents that may need care. The American Academy of Pediatrics has made child and adolescent mental health care a priority and the US Preventive Services Task Force has identified annual adolescent depression screening as the standard of care.

Our January 27 Webinar featured three members of the AAP’s Task Force on Mental Health, who explored practical strategies that can maximize payment for screening, consulting, and treatment of adolescent mental health care.

• Click here to listen and view the webinar
• Download the slides presented during the webinar (full slide deck)

• Download a comprehensive slide deck on coding and payment from Dr. Lynn Wegner

Panel:

Kelly J. Kelleher, MD, MPH, Moderator; Director of the Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice at the Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Professor, Department of Pediatrics, The Ohio State University College of Medicine

Lynn M. Wegner, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Thomas K. McInerny, MD, Associate Chair for Clinical Affairs and Professor of Pediatrics, University of Rochester Medical Center/Golisano Children’s Hospital at Strong.

Speaker Bios

Kelly J. Kelleher, M.D., M.P.H.
Kelly Kelleher’s research interests focus on accessibility, effectiveness and quality of health care services for children and their families, especially those affected by mental disorders, substance abuse or violence. In particular, Dr. Kelleher studies technology, organization and financing of services and systems as they change outcomes. Comparisons between diverse treatments and their cost effectiveness represent a core interest. He is currently the Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Drug Abuse to examine interventions to improve care for children in primary care, and how local and state policies these services and families.

Dr. Kelleher is also a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Mental Health Task Force and the Institute of Medicine subcommittee on Adolescent Healthcare.

Lynn M. Wegner, MD
Lynn Wegner, MD, a developmental/behavioral pediatrician, is Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the Developmental/Behavioral Pediatrics Division of the pediatrics department at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. After receiving her BA from Mt. Holyoke College and her MD from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, Dr. Wegner trained in pediatrics at Children’s Memorial Hospital, Oklahoma City, Ok. and North Carolina Children’s Hospital, Chapel Hill, NC. She completed her developmental/behavioral pediatrics fellowship at the Center for Development and Learning, University of North Carolina under the directorship of Dr. Melvin Levine.

Dr. Wegner is the immediate past-Chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and was appointed in 2007 to the AAP Committee on Coding and Nomenclature. She has successfully defended two code proposals to the AMA Specialty Society Relative Value Update Committee (RUC). She is Chairperson of the SDBP/SODBP Coding Committee –a combined effort of the AAP Section on Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (SDBP). She was a member of the AAP Task Force on Mental Health (2006-2009), is the AAP liaison to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Committee on Health Care Access and Economics (2006-present) She is the AAP liaison consultant to the DSM-V Work Group on Somatoform Disorders. Dr. Wegner’s areas of particular expertise are executive functions and emotional regulation in children and adolescents, specific learning disabilities, language development and disorders and payment for mental health services in non-mental health care settings.

Thomas K. McInerny, MD, FAAP
Thomas K. McInerny, MD, FAAP is Associate Chair for Clinical Affairs and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center/Golisano Children’s Hospital where he works closely with the full time faculty and the primary care pediatricians in the Rochester region. Dr. McInerny is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Medical School, and Harvard Medical School. His pediatric residency training was at Cincinnati and Boston Children’s Hospitals. He has over 30 publications in peer reviewed journals and is the author of a chapter on primary care for children with special health care needs in “Optimizing Care for Young Children with Special Health Care Needs”. He has had over 35 years experience as a primary care pediatrician. Dr. McInerny is the immediate past chair of the Committee on Child Health Financing (COCHF) and is also a member of the following American Academy of Pediatrics committees: Task Force on Immunization, the Mental Health Task Force, and Steering Committee on Quality Improvement and Management. He is the AAP’s representative to the American Board of Pediatrics’ Maintenance of Certification Subcommittee.

Dr. McInerny’s areas of expertise are in caring for children with chronic illness, children’s mental health, the financing of children’s health care, and quality improvement.