Foster Children

" Foster children have often been removed from abusive or neglectful homes and tend to have more mental health conditions than other children. Treatment of these conditions may include psychotropic drugs, but the risks these drugs pose specifically to children are not well understood. Medicaid, which is administered by states and overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), provides prescription drug coverage to foster children. For selected states, GAO examined (1) 2008 rates of psychotropic prescriptions for foster and nonfoster children and (2) state oversight of psychotropic prescriptions for foster children through October 2011. GAO selected Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Texas primarily for geographic diversity and size of the foster care population, and analyzed state Medicaid fee-forservice and foster care data from selected states for 2008. 2008 was the most recent year of prescription data available at the start of the audit. Maryland's 2008 foster care data were unreliable and could not be analyzed. GAO contracted with expert child psychiatrists to provide a clinical perspective on our methodology and analysis, reviewed regulations and state policies, and interviewed federal and state officials. Results cannot be generalized to other states. "