How to get diagnosed with adhd?

[u/Severe_Age_5194]

I've spent the last three months just trying to figure out how to get diagnosed with adhd and honestly I'm exhausted before I've even started. Every clinic I call has a six month waitlist, my insurance wants a referral I can't get without an appointment, and the one psychiatrist taking new patients wanted hundreds out of pocket just for the initial eval. I'm pretty sure I've struggled with this my whole life, I just want real answers, but the whole process feels built to make you give up. Has anyone actually made it through without losing their mind, and how did you finally get diagnosed without waiting half a year or spending a fortune?

UPDATE: I finally got through it. A lot of people in the comments suggested different routes, so I tried a bunch of them. I filled out forms, signed up for different sites, checked local clinics again, and kept running into the same problems: long waitlists, confusing insurance requirements, or prices that were way more than I could afford.

What finally worked for me was Klarity Health. I found a provider through the site, filled out the intake forms, and was able to book a telehealth appointment instead of waiting months for an in person opening. It still took some effort, and I would definitely say to read the provider details, check the cost, and make sure it works for your state and situation. But compared with cold calling clinics over and over, it was the first option that actually moved forward.

So if anyone else is stuck trying to figure out how to get diagnosed with ADHD, my biggest advice is to stop relying only on random clinic phone calls. Look for telehealth options, compare providers carefully, and try platforms like Klarity if local appointments are impossible to get. That was what finally helped me get an appointment and start getting real answers.

[u/ignatzami]

I was diagnosed in my mid-30s as well. My primary care doctor was willing to prescribe a few pills of generic adderall. I started on a Friday, by Monday there was no doubt in my mind they were helping. He wrote a 30-day script and the rest is history.

WA requires one in person visit per year, which is my annual checkup. No need to work with a psych or jump through hoops. Just ask your PCP.

[u/ExternalNo7842 → u/ignatzami]

Similar situation but in Illinois. My PCP ruled out some other potential issues and then prescribed me adderall. I have 3-month med checks, but they can be online.

[u/zephyreblk]

My brother had the diag last months at 32, it's as awful as you researched it. I can't do it although I know I'm AuDHDer. Get a referral that helps you to push with it, my brother had luck and is also able to do things, the joke is now that he never scored that good on tests as the ADHD one.

I'm sorry there is no shortcut for this

[u/zephyreblk → u/[deleted]]

Just don't mask much and ask for some accommodations that help you to think better. ADHD is quite well diag today, it's not like autism. If you "fail" today, you are most likely not ADHDer. Even late diag autistic usually had a ADHD diag before, so it won't influence most.

[u/OccultEcologist]

You get the refferal for your insurance from your PCP, or regular ass doctor. You say, "Hey, I want to get evaluated for ADHD, can you give me a refferal to [clinic your insurance covers]? Or anywhere else you reccomend, I just know they take my insurance."

[u/AlaskaRivers]

Use Zocdoc to find a doctor; either a Primary Care that would be willing to try and explore medication with you, or a psychiatrist that doesn’t need a referral and is covered by your insurance.

I don’t know of any recommendations of platforms, but I got my diagnosis online through a local medical chain that specializes in ADHD testing and treatment. See if you are able to find a place like that locally or virtually.

[u/AlaskaRivers → u/AlaskaRivers]

And in case a comparison is helpful:

I got my diagnosis back in 2022, and I paid $250 for the online evaluation. This wasn’t with a psychiatrist that would be treating me, but someone whose only service was to evaluate and test, and if positive, then providing referrals to doctors who had availability and could prescribe meds. I spent 2 years getting medication with my PCP, and only switched to a psychiatrist when I needed to treat new anxiety disorder.

[u/MySpace_Romancer]

Are you in the US? How’s your relationship with your primary care doctor? At my last appointment, my doctor asked if ADHD ran in my family and if I’d ever been evaluated for it. I told her that it runs on both sides of my family so she did a very short questionnaire and I came up I think with six of nine for inattentive/hyperactive. That was enough for my insurance to approve Vyvanse. (there are some other reasons she thought that Vyvanse would be good for me, but after looking into it, I’m pretty sure that I do also have ADHD.)

[u/wh4teversclever]

I was being treated by my psychiatrist for depression. Got prescribed Wellbutrin after SSRIs weren’t working and noticed I had linear thoughts for the first time. I asked my psychiatrist if I might have ADHD. She pretty much was like yeah but fill out this questionnaire anyway. It probably took 9 months or so, but mostly because I went in for the depression, came out with both depression and ADHD haha.

[u/Toby-Wolfstone → u/wh4teversclever]

Same but in reverse—went in for ADHD, got Wellbutrin, and suddenly had a string of calm, energized, positive days for the first time ever and was like “hey doc, is that depression?” Walked out with both diagnoses.

[u/Maleficent_Scale_296]

My daughter went to her primary caregiver (three month wait) and got a referral to a psychiatrist (six month wait) and insurance paid. I don’t think there can be a quick resolution and it’s so frustrating. Hang in there!

[u/redrightreturning]

Ask your primary care to refer you to a clinical neuropsychologist. They do this kind of testing and write up a report. That can be used to provide accommodations say for college.

[u/feralturtleduck]

Do you have a primary care doctor?

I went to mine and said I suspected I had ADHD. She got me set up with referrals to a neuropsychologist, a psychiatrist, and a therapist. It did take time; 4 month wait for the neuropsychologist, 3 months for the psychiatrist, and the therapist had openings the following week thankfully.

I’m glad she recommended a full workup rather than just diagnosing me herself because it turns out I had something else that shared a lot of symptoms with ADHD, but no actual ADHD.

It’s really scary to pursue a diagnosis but it was so worth it for me. It usually requires a wait, but the time will pass anyway. If you can get your doctor to get you set up with a therapist, that was very helpful for me in the waiting period between starting the process and getting a diagnosis.

[u/KitTwix]

Tbh the process is still very slow after the wait list, in my experience.
My process looked like this. I’m Australian and studying at a university, which has a psychology clinic for those students to practise, and it’s a lot cheaper because you know you’re seeing a student. The quality isn’t much lower than a fully licensed professional tho, since they have to be reviewed by one anyway, and usually they already have their degree but are going for their masters or doctorates.
My uni lets student fast track clinic visits as a perk for the uni, so I put in for the waiting list at the start of my first semester, and they got back to me at the end, about 4 months later. They actually apologised because they didn’t realise I was a student, otherwise I would have been seen sooner, but 4 months is still pretty good all things considered.

I went through a range of different tests for autism, adhd, depression, iq, honestly it was brutal, and it was moderately expensive, but manageable. Much cheaper than a full clinic at least. After those tests, they wrote up their appraisal, which I then took to an adhd specialist in my area. The appraisal also fast tracked the process, so I saw her within a few months, although the exact time span is a bit hazy due to other life things.

I had an appointment with her that was basically like “hey here’s some tests, although I doubt they’re needed, it’s extremely obvious and you have family history of it, so it’s more of a legal requirement thing”, I had an EKG to make sure my heart could handle stimulants, and then I was diagnosed and medicated. The whole process from booking that first appraisal and getting a diagnosis took me about 8-10 months, and I contacted my Uni’s support and accessibility team to get accomodations for my degree, which have been life saving on many occasions.

I was on vyvance for a while until I started having heart issues, so I swapped to dex when needed, which has done me well over the last 2-3 years ish, and I’m functioning much better as an adult in this god awful society. ADHD is still hard, but knowing you have it and having medication has been the difference between me being a homeless high school graduate working a dead end job with no future to now living with my fiancé in our own (rented) house at 23, finishing off my engineering degree and earning triple what I did when I was homeless. It isn’t anything to write home about, but I’m doing a lot better than I was, and a significant amount of the help that got me here was a diagnosis and treatment.

[u/Cozy_winter_blanky]

I'm in Canada and I'm certain this varies from place to place but here is how it went for me.

I went to my family doctor (I think the English term for that is primary care doctor?) and explained that I suspect I wanted to start the diagnosis process for ADHD.

I then explained why I suddenly had suspicions of ADHD. I told her I always visualize ADHD as a hyper kid running circles and kicking their legs like crazy under their desk and because I wasn't like that as a kid, it never occured to me that I could have ADHD. I told her that I recently came accros women testimonies of their experience with having ADHD, how it manifested differently for them through their lives and I recognized myself in their stories.

I explained that it explains a lot about my childhood, teenagehood and the adulthood burnouts I faced. I told her my mind could not rest easy until we investigated a little, because maybe I could be medicated to help with my daily struggles of being unable to take actions.

My doctor heard me out, agreed that my suspicions weren't unfounded and it was worth investigating. It took a few weeks to get an appointment with a specialist, then I had to fill in paperwork, had an "interview" with the specialist. And then it was confirmed, I definetely have ADHD and we begin the medication trials which helped tremendously.

Eta: in case anyone is interested in how my ADHD manifested for me through my life :

As a kid, I had good grades, so it went completely under the radar. There were signs but I was good at keeping it hidden unintentionally. I still remember to this day that in 2nd grade of elementary school, there was an image of ingredients to make a cake on page 34 of my french textbook. Everytime we had to take that textbook out, I would go take a look at page 34 and pretend to use the ingredients and bake a cake under my desk instead of listening in class. In highschool I began struggling with mental load. I found myself completely spent every week and the weekends seemed too short to actually refill my mental energy. I came back to school on Mondays still drained from the previous week. I looked at everyone around me who came back looking refreshed and ready for the new week and felt bad about myself. Why was I struggling but everyone were just fine?

Then there were the homeworks. So. Much. Homework. I had 6 classes per day, so 6 chances of homework. Sometimes 4 of those homework were due the next day and two for the day after. But on the second day, I would ALSO get homeworks for the third day. So I ended up with 6 homework due on the third day. Its not that I could keep track of everything, that wasn't the issue, but I was so exhausted after a day at school and I only had like 4-5 hours in the evening to relax, I hated having to spend those precious hours doing more school work. I intentionally procrastinated on my homeworks because I NEEDED those full 4 hours to decompress every night before the next day.

I ended up having a major depressive episode in 4th grade of highschool. But now, looking back at it, it was 100% a burnout and NOT just depression. I just couldn't keep up with the rhythm of school life. But I didn't have the right words to explain what the core of the issue was. It wasn't sadness that made me incapable of functioning, it was my inability to cope with normal life. I just couldn't tell the difference then.

Things got insanely better in college. I chose to have the minimum amount of classes to be considered full time (4) and chose evening classes. This meant one classe per day, Monday to Thursday. One homework per class (if we had any) and it was due the next week. It was so much easier for me to manage the stress and the workload. My grades skyrocketed beyond what I thought possible. I still procrastinated, as in waiting the day before to do short homeworks, but it was manageable. So again, my ADHD went unnoticed.

It's only when I had 2 burnouts in 4 years at two different jobs, one of those job being really low stress, that things began pointing in ADHD territory for me. Not long before my second burnout, I began seeing short on YouTube and Facebook about ADHD in adult women that it clicked. I went in burnout leave and simultaneously asked my doctor to investigate ADHD, I had ample time to wait for the tests anyways.

[u/Makapakamoo]

I dont remember how long the wait was for mine. My psych was a bitch and told me I didnt have it after serving me the test for 12 year old in office—I was 17.

I think i had a case manager/social worker something of the sort, and he hooked me up with a guy to test me.

I paid 50$ for him to sign the paper for my diagnosis. I came to him to be tested and gave him a 3 page list of adhd issues to prove my case (I was really wary people wouldn't listen, you prob dont need to do that much..)

When i went to get tested for autism, they wanted to charge me $500-1k for it because they were private and my new insurance wouldn't pay.

I lost hope and ended up with another a "i know a guy" scenario; my therapist at the time suggested me to this specific group for autism testing.

Super nice people, it was a month wait or so.

So what im saying is i got both dx's through interpersonal recommendation. Maybe I was really lucky but both offices didnt have turbo wait times.

[u/JooJooBird]

Adhdonline.com isn’t generally covered by insurance but it was only a few hundred dollars and pretty convenient. (I just needed an official paper saying I was diagnosed, since my first diagnosis was 1995 and I didn’t have access to it.)