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ADHD rules by state

ADHD rules in South Australia

In South Australia an adult can be assessed and diagnosed with ADHD by a relevant specialist doctor, and since 28 February 2026 also by a GP who has completed the RACGP's South Australian ADHD training, where that GP judges it clinically appropriate - the RACGP publishes the names of the GPs who finished that training. An assessment does not automatically lead to a diagnosis, and a diagnosis does not automatically lead to medicine; SA Health says severity is a matter for clinical judgement and that medicine should sit inside a broader program of support. If a stimulant medicine is prescribed, your doctor must get their own permission from SA Health's Drugs of Dependence Unit for you specifically once regular treatment runs past two months - and any time you have already spent on treatment with other doctors, including interstate, counts toward that two months.

Last checked 2026-08-21. These rules change, sometimes at short notice. We date every page and cite the source we used, so you can check it yourself. Nothing here is advice about your own treatment — your prescriber and your state health department are the authorities on that.

Who can diagnose you

Who is allowed to make the diagnosis here?

An adult in South Australia can be assessed and diagnosed by a relevant AHPRA-recognised specialist medical practitioner, or - since 28 February 2026 - by a GP who has completed ADHD-specific training through the RACGP, in that GP's judgement of what is clinically appropriate for an adult. No referral to a psychiatrist or paediatrician is needed to see a trained GP. Only GPs who completed that specific training are in this category, and the RACGP publishes their names.

SA Health's consumer page states: 'From 28 February 2026, specially trained South Australian GPs can assess, diagnose, treat and prescribe medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children 8 years old and above, as well as adults where clinically appropriate, without needing to make a referral to a psychiatrist or paediatrician' (last updated 03 Mar 2026). The 'where clinically appropriate' qualifier is part of the rule for adults and must not be dropped: it is the treating doctor's clinical judgement, not a patient entitlement. SA Health's clinical page, last updated 18 August 2026, expresses the same split in guidance language: 'Diagnosis and initial application for authority to prescribe Schedule 8 stimulants should be made by a relevant AHPRA recognised specialist medical practitioner (e.g. paediatrician, psychiatrist, neurologist or respiratory physician) or a GP who has completed ADHD-specific training through the RACGP.' Note that this is worded as 'should', which is guidance, and SA Health does not publish a statement that anyone else is barred from diagnosing - so a public page should quote the guidance rather than assert a prohibition. Note also that this sentence is expressly tied to Schedule 8 stimulant medicines and the authority to prescribe them; see 'unconfirmed' for medicines outside that category. To find a trained GP, SA Health says to 'check your regular practice website or speak with your regular GP. The RACGP have listed those GPs who have completed the training on their website.' That RACGP list names 81 GPs and was last updated 10 April 2026 - it is a point-in-time record of the inaugural cohort, not a live register. SA Health adds: 'GP consultation fees may apply. Ask about fees when booking.'

Who can start treatment

Who can start you on medicine, and what approval do they need?

Treatment with a Schedule 8 stimulant medicine is normally started by a relevant AHPRA-recognised specialist medical practitioner or by an RACGP ADHD-trained GP, and that prescriber applies for their own authority from SA Health's Drugs of Dependence Unit for that specific patient. The authority is legally required once regular treatment runs beyond two months - not from the first prescription - and time already spent on treatment with other prescribers counts toward those two months.

SA Health: 'It is an offence to prescribe or supply (including administering from the prescribers' own supply), drugs of dependence for a patient's regular use during a period exceeding two months without an authority from the Minister', and 'Treatment provided by other prescribers must be considered when calculating the two-month period.' The authority is granted under section 18A of the Controlled Substances Act 1984 (SA). SA Health defines it as 'a legal document granted by the Minister allowing prescribers to treat a particular patient with specified drugs of dependence; it is not intended to provide clinical endorsement of the treatment being prescribed, this is the responsibility of the prescriber' - the second half matters, because the authority is not government approval that the treatment is right for you. It is not the PBS authority, which is a separate subsidy approval. Applications: the 18 August 2026 clinical page says 'Applications must be made to the Minister via the Drugs of Dependence Unit by directly applying through Script Check SA', and the forms page (26 June 2026) says 'As of 1st January 2026, applications for authority to prescribe schedule 8 drugs must be submitted via Script Check SA.' Disclose the conflict: SA Health's own 'Legal requirements' page, updated later on 29 July 2026, still says 'Applications are to be made in writing only and signed by the applying prescriber.' We follow the ScriptCheckSA route as the more specific and twice-stated rule, but SA Health has not reconciled its pages. Separate rules that bite at initiation: a prescriber must not (unless an emergency exists) prescribe a drug of dependence 'having not first examined the patient or animal and determined that it is clinically necessary'; and a prescriber must 'take all reasonable steps to check relevant information in Script Check SA before prescribing or dispensing a monitored drug to a patient, unless an exemption applies', with a maximum penalty of $5,000 for failing to do so without a reasonable excuse. Statutory exemptions from needing an authority at all, which can apply to adults, are: a patient aged 70 years or more where the drug is not one named opioid; a patient with life expectancy under 12 months where the prescriber has notified the Minister and endorses the prescription 'Notified Palliative Care Patient' or 'NPCP'; an inpatient in a hospital or correctional institution where treatment does not exceed 14 days; and a discharged patient where post-discharge treatment does not exceed 14 days. These are NOT the same as the exemptions from the ScriptCheckSA checking duty, which are worded differently ('over 70 years of age', 'less than 14 days') and carve out a different set of named substances. Finally, SA Health is explicit that medicine is one part of care, not the endpoint: 'Determining the severity of ADHD is a matter for clinical judgement', and 'treatment should be part of a comprehensive program addressing psychological, behavioural and educational or occupational needs.'

Who can continue it

Once you are stable, who can keep prescribing?

The authority names one prescriber and one patient. Ongoing prescribing is done by that prescriber, or by another doctor in the same practice covering their absence. A GP who has not done the RACGP ADHD training will not usually be granted an authority for a Schedule 8 stimulant medicine without explicit written support from a relevant specialist or an ADHD-trained GP. If your prescriber leaves, or you change practice, the new prescriber must obtain their own authority - it does not travel with you.

SA Health: 'A general practitioner (GP) will not usually be granted an authority to prescribe schedule 8 stimulants without the explicit written support of a relevant specialist medical practitioner or ADHD trained GP and; the diagnosis and treatment have been established, and/or for individual patients with special needs (including those living in regional areas) where a specialist retains clinical oversight of the patient's care.' That written support does not compel anyone: 'A specialist cannot direct a GP to prescribe a medication - the decision to prescribe a drug remains the clinical and professional responsibility of the individual GP.' Locum cover is narrow and absence-based, not a standing entitlement for anyone at the clinic: 'A prescriber working in the same practice as the authority holder (authorised prescriber) can act as a locum and continue to prescribe treatment in the short term absence of the authorised prescriber. Prescribing must comply with the conditions of the authority', put to patients as 'Another doctor working in the same clinic as your authorised doctor is covered under the authority to prescribe drugs of dependence for you in their absence.' Conditions bind the patient too. SA Health's consumer page states treatment 'should be organised through only one prescriber' and lists standard authority conditions: do not increase your dose above what was prescribed, do not take it other than as directed, do not obtain supply from doctors other than your authorised doctor, do not share your medication, and do not take other drugs that may affect the treatment without your doctor's knowledge and consent. Prescriptions and medicines must be stored in a locked container, and 'It is a condition of the authority that replacement supplies will not be provided for lost or stolen prescriptions or drugs.' Prescriptions for drugs of dependence are valid for a maximum of six months from the date of prescribing. Continuation is never guaranteed: SA Health tells prescribers that 'Each health practitioner is responsible for determining the clinical appropriateness of prescribing or dispensing a monitored drug', while also warning that 'Abruptly discharging (abandoning) a patient or suddenly stopping treatment for patients who have been taking monitored drugs over a long period of time is contrary to their safety' - that is prescriber guidance about safe transitions, not a patient right to continued prescribing. SA Health also states that patients have four options to appeal an administrative decision of the Drugs of Dependence Unit, and directs clinical complaints to AHPRA. Where there is a history of substance misuse, SA Health tells prescribers to consider urine drug screening, referral to an addiction medicine specialist or drug and alcohol services, and liaison between treating clinicians. Drugs of Dependence Unit: 1300 652 584, HealthDrugsofDependenceUnit@sa.gov.au.

Telehealth

Can this happen by video, and does the practitioner have to be here?

We could not find any published South Australian rule requiring an in-person appointment before an ADHD assessment, or before prescribing a Schedule 8 stimulant medicine. The constraints we can source are national and general. SA law does require that a prescriber has 'first examined the patient' and determined it is clinically necessary before prescribing a drug of dependence, and SA Health does not say whether a video or phone consultation satisfies that - so the position on remote assessment is genuinely unresolved, not permissive.

SA Health states a prescriber must not (unless an emergency exists) prescribe or supply a drug of dependence 'having not first examined the patient or animal and determined that it is clinically necessary'. The published wording is not qualified as in-person or physical, and SA Health publishes no interpretation of it. Nationally, the Medical Board of Australia's 'Telehealth consultations with patients' guidelines (page reviewed 1 September 2023) say telehealth 'is not appropriate for all medical consultations and should not be considered as a routine substitute for in-person consultations', that 'The standard of care provided in telehealth consultations may be limited by the lack of in-person interaction and capacity to carry out physical examinations', and that 'telehealth is generally most appropriate in the context of a continuing clinical relationship with a patient that also involves in-person consultations' - while adding 'These guidelines do not prevent or discourage one-off telehealth consultations.' On prescribing, the Board says: 'Prescribing or providing healthcare for a patient without a real-time direct consultation, whether in-person, via video or telephone, is not good practice and is not supported by the Board', expressly capturing questionnaire-based asynchronous requests 'when the practitioner has never spoken with the patient'. The Board immediately qualifies that: 'The Board recognises that it may be appropriate for a patient's usual medical practitioner or another health practitioner with access to the patient's clinical record to prescribe without a consultation in certain circumstances' - a carve-out for an existing treating relationship, which would rarely cover a first ADHD assessment. The Board also directs practitioners to 'Be aware of, and comply with state, territory and jurisdictional legislative requirements when prescribing medicines, including using government real-time prescription monitoring service (RTPM) or equivalent... This includes in the jurisdictions of both the prescriber and patient.' Separately from the law, Medicare rebate rules (not SA rules) can require an existing relationship with the practice for telehealth items - check with the service before booking.

If you move here

What happens to a diagnosis and treatment from another state?

A diagnosis made interstate does not have to be redone as a matter of South Australian regulation, but the prescribing authority does not come with you. Your new South Australian prescriber must hold their own authority, and because time on treatment with previous prescribers counts toward the two-month limit, someone who has already been treated interstate for longer than two months will generally need that authority in place from the start rather than after a fresh two-month run-in. In the meantime, an existing interstate prescription for a Schedule 8 medicine can be dispensed at a South Australian pharmacy only if the pharmacist can verify it.

The two published rules that decide the timing are: 'It is an offence to prescribe or supply... drugs of dependence for a patient's regular use during a period exceeding two months without an authority from the Minister', and 'Treatment provided by other prescribers must be considered when calculating the two-month period.' The authority names a particular prescriber and a particular patient, so a new South Australian prescriber applies for their own. Which practitioner can take that on depends on their category: a relevant specialist or an RACGP ADHD-trained GP is within the group SA Health names for diagnosis and the initial authority application, while a GP without that training falls under the maintenance conditions (explicit written support from a relevant specialist or an ADHD-trained GP, with diagnosis and treatment established, and/or the special-needs or regional limb with retained specialist oversight). Bridging supply: SA Health states that prescriptions for Schedule 8 medicines 'written by prescribers in another state or territory can be dispensed in South Australia provided the pharmacist dispensing the prescription: knows the person for whom the medication has been prescribed, OR recognises the signature of the prescriber on the prescription, OR has verified the prescription by contacting the prescriber' - and warns the reverse does not follow automatically: 'Prescriptions for schedule 8 medicines written in South Australia may not be valid in another state or territory.' Prescriptions for drugs of dependence are valid for a maximum of six months from the date of prescribing. Practical implication: bring your assessment and treatment documentation and arrange a handover before you move, because your new prescriber needs written clinical material to support an authority application, and expect to be asked for it. Whether an authority granted in another state has any standing in South Australia is not addressed on any SA Health page we could find - see 'unconfirmed'. The Drugs of Dependence Unit (1300 652 584) is the place to ask about a transferring patient.

What we could not confirm

We went looking for these and could not find a primary source. We would rather show you the gap than fill it with something that sounds right. Take these to your prescriber or the department directly.

  • Whether an authority granted in another state or territory has any standing in South Australia. No SA Health page we fetched mentions interstate authorities at all. The interstate material SA Health does publish is about dispensing a prescription written elsewhere, which is a different question. Earlier drafts asserted that an interstate permission 'does not carry over'; that is a reasonable inference from the authority being prescriber-and-patient specific, but it is not published anywhere, so we state it as unconfirmed rather than as a rule.
  • Whether a prescriber physically located outside South Australia who treats a South Australian resident must hold a South Australian section 18A authority once treatment passes two months. SA Health addresses the downstream dispensing question only. Anyone in this position should contact the Drugs of Dependence Unit on 1300 652 584 rather than rely on inference.
  • Whether a video or telephone consultation satisfies the South Australian requirement that a prescriber has 'first examined the patient' before prescribing a drug of dependence. The published wording is not qualified as in-person or physical, and SA Health publishes no interpretive guidance. We cannot say either way.
  • What rules, if any, apply in South Australia to ADHD medicines that are not drugs of dependence. Every SA Health condition we verified - the diagnosis wording, the initial authority application, the maintenance conditions - is expressly attached to Schedule 8 stimulant medicines and to the authority to prescribe them, and the section 18A authority requirement is expressed as applying to 'drugs of dependence'. A medicine that is not scheduled as a drug of dependence therefore falls outside that authority requirement, but SA Health publishes nothing about who may diagnose or prescribe for adult ADHD in that situation. We could not confirm it, and readers should not treat the silence as a route around anything - what a clinician can appropriately offer is a clinical decision, not a regulatory entitlement.
  • Whether a prescription written under the new trained-GP pathway attracts PBS subsidy, and whether the PBS restriction for the relevant medicines limits which prescriber types can obtain subsidised supply. We could not confirm this from a primary source, and it determines what a person actually pays.
  • Whether a nurse practitioner can obtain a South Australian authority to start or continue Schedule 8 stimulant treatment for adult ADHD. SA Health says generally that medical practitioners, nurse practitioners and dentists must hold an authority in specified circumstances, but its ADHD guidance names only specialist medical practitioners and RACGP ADHD-trained GPs. Neither confirmed nor excluded.
  • The eligibility criteria for the RACGP South Australian ADHD training program (previously stated as AHPRA registration as a Specialist General Practitioner, no conditions on registration, and current practice in South Australia). We could not locate these criteria on any SA Health or RACGP page. Do not publish them.
  • The structure and duration of the training program (online modules, an in-person day, peer group sessions). Reported only in trade press, not on any SA Health or RACGP program page we could reach.
  • Whether any further cohort of trained GPs has been delivered since the inaugural group. The RACGP list has not been updated since 10 April 2026 and names 81 GPs. A second cohort was publicly committed to in early 2026, but we found no primary source confirming it has been trained. Do not tell readers a larger pool of trained GPs exists.
  • The current number of accredited ADHD GPs. The published RACGP list has 81 names; public statements have described 'about 100'. The discrepancy is unexplained.
  • Whether any South Australian public service assesses adults for ADHD. We found only paediatric public assessment pathways, and no SA Health statement that adults are excluded. This is an inference from absence, not a confirmed rule.
  • How long the Drugs of Dependence Unit takes to decide an authority application. Not published.
  • Any wait time or price figure for adult ADHD assessment in South Australia. No government dataset exists. Figures circulating in news coverage come from a single interviewed patient and from ministerial statements made when announcing the reform. They are not statistics and must not be published as typical.
  • The text of the legislation itself. Section 18A of the Controlled Substances Act 1984 (SA) and the specific regulations could not be read directly - legislation.sa.gov.au returns a bot challenge. Everything statutory above rests on SA Health's own footnoted summaries of those provisions, which we verified on SA Health's pages. Publish it as 'SA Health cites', not as a reading of the Act.
  • How the Controlled Substances (Poisons) Regulations 2026 renumber the specific provisions relied on here. SA Health confirms the numbering of every regulation changes on 1 September 2026 but publishes no full concordance, so we have deliberately avoided citing 2011 regulation numbers as if they were durable.

What changed recently

  1. 2026-01-01

    IN FORCE. Applications for authority to prescribe Schedule 8 medicines must be submitted through ScriptCheckSA. SA Health warns applications received by email, fax or post may not be accepted. Note that one SA Health page updated later, on 29 July 2026, still says applications are to be made in writing only - SA Health has not reconciled this.

    SA Health — Forms and resources for the Drugs of Dependence Unit

  2. 2026-02-28

    IN FORCE. Specially trained South Australian GPs can assess, diagnose, treat and prescribe medication for ADHD in children aged 8 and above, and in adults where clinically appropriate, without needing to make a referral to a psychiatrist or paediatrician. This is the change that first opened a non-specialist diagnostic route for adults in South Australia.

    SA Health — Access ADHD care through a GP

  3. 2026-04-10

    IN FORCE. The RACGP published the names of the 81 GPs who completed the inaugural South Australian ADHD GP training program. SA Health directs patients to this list. It has not been updated since.

    Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) — South Australia ADHD GP training program

  4. 2026-08-18

    IN FORCE. SA Health's clinical prescribing page was updated and still carries the trained-GP wording, confirming the pathway is current as at this review.

    SA Health — Prescribing drugs of dependence

  5. 2026-09-01

    NOT YET IN FORCE as at 21 August 2026 - this happens in eleven days. The Controlled Substances (Poisons) Regulations 2026 will come into operation on 1 September 2026, replacing the 2011 regulations. SA Health says the regulations maintain existing requirements while updating terminology and clarity, and that the numbering of each regulation changes. Nothing in the listed changes concerns ADHD, stimulant medicines or prescribing authorities, and the section 18A authority sits in the Act rather than the regulations, so the substance of everything above is expected to survive. Regulation numbers cited anywhere will not.

    SA Health — Controlled Substances (Poisons) Regulations 2026

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