Startups are pushing Adderall on TikTok | Hacker News Reader

Startups are pushing Adderall on TikTok

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28 pointsimartin2k14 comments

Move fast and break things aka... move fast and cash out before regulators catch you.

The incentives are too high to ignore.

What's mindlowing to me is that there are so many schemes of this type and of varying degrees of legality that are all out in the open with millions of eyeballs on them, but getting consequences is rare and getting significant consequences compared to the payout even more so. If you have a personality type that is resistant to stress from uncertainty, you're golden.

How else do you want healthcare to work under capitalism though? This is the system working as intended. There are more mainstream accepted practices without the histerics (eg orthodontist or optometrist) but Dr-with-a-clinic is how medical care advances in this country. Rich patients can afford to attend out of pocket, eg ketamine treatment with therapy, until insurance covers it, which can make it seem more legit because it's in an office, but realistically does telemedicine really change things? Patients still need to see a provider, and they need to sign off on medication.

All of the other developed economies are also capitalistic yet have their own healthcare idiosyncrasies and attitudes towards such scams. Setting aside the debate of whether complete ideological overhaul is needed in general, we can still conclude that some improvement is possible even under the current capitalistic system.

it's a good application of machine learning and AI, to go out and identify these scenarios

This new trend of telehealth services prescribing things in a nearly automated fashion seems like its going to get regulated soon.

I sincerely hope they do, but I wonder if this trend wouldn't have been possible if getting access to mental healthcare didn't just seem so impossible for most folks in the US.

Its interesting because I've looked into these "automated prescription" telehealth services for a year now without much luck.

I have prescription OCD meds that I've been on for a couple of years. I pay 100 USD out of pocket every 3 months for a telehealth appointment with my doc where she asks "everything okay? Same prescrition?" Its totally useless, but I've yet to find a service that is <33 USD/month to save me any money on this.

I think the benefits of these startups aren't that they are cheaper but that they offer new patient exams within a few days. My PCP won't diagnose let alone prescribe medication for ADHD (which is pretty normal from what I've seen) but finding a psychiatrist can be a real pain. I've heard of people booking appointments a month or two in advance which, for a lot of people, is outside of their work/life scheduling horizon. I admit this particular problem is a bit top of mind because I'm trying to see an audiologist and last week places around me were booking for February 2023 :(

It's only a matter of time, and I hope it happens soon. I was always a bit... concerned with the services like Keeps/Hims/Roman/etc that do generic ED medication, but to see services like this that will just let you bullshit your way to a controlled medication is just a bit... concerning.

The doctors (and in reality, a lot more NPs than MDs) don't care because all they have to do is hop on their app and rubber-stamp away between their normal patient load. It's free money!

A couple years ago a company called Wellness Fitness Nutrition was putting videos on YouTube advertising steroids (illegal in the USA to buy/sell). They sold them on their website! It ran for at least a year until they were 'caught' and the owner was put into prison.

how about we stop medicating ADHD and treat it at the source?

Why don't we do both? I have ADHD and take medication for it. It has worked wonders for me personally. It's certainly not for everyone, but just because it only works for some people doesn't mean we should stop those who it works for from getting it.

> how about we stop medicating ADHD and treat it at the source?

What source? AFAIK that's up in the air, ranging from strong psychological trauma to hyperhedonia to undiagnosed genius to TBI to fetal/birthing environment to misdiagnosed [insert a long list] and many other hypotheses in between.

Of these, my personal (and informed) belief is that the trauma aspect is most overlooked. And when I say trauma I mean trauma of all kinds, but specifically the traumas that tend to precede hypervigilance, which when "coped with" translates to identical symptoms as the layman's understanding of ADHD.

In that case, yes, I agree, let's stop it at the source. Stop traumatizing kids, and stop traumatizing adults.

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