Understand Your Experiences
Struggling with attention, motivation, time management, or other executive functions can impact your life in a lot of ways. An ADHD evaluation can give you insight into your experiences and concrete next steps to address your needs.
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What Is an ADHD Evaluation?
There could be many reasons you might be struggling with things like attention, time management, organization, memory, or other executive functions. ADHD might be one of them. An ADHD evaluation examines specific aspects of the way you think and other parts of your mental health history that can help determine the right diagnosis for you. Whether or not that diagnosis is ADHD, your evaluator will give you a report that summarizes your unique strengths, challenges, and specific recommendations for your next steps.
Is an ADHD Evaluation Right for Me?
ADHD evaluation at CAPS is for University of Arizona students. Students must be in the state of Arizona to complete the evaluation (even for the online portions).
ADHD evaluation can be a helpful step in understanding the difficulties you're having and getting you connected to the right services and resources for you. Part of the process involves a screening during which our ADHD evaluation team will help you decide if the full evaluation would be a good fit for you. If an ADHD evaluation at CAPS is not a good fit, we'll help you get with the right services for you.
If you have been previously diagnosed with ADHD and have been stable on ADHD medication, you don't need to complete an evaluation to be seen at CAPS for ADHD medication management. Please call us at 520-621-3334 to schedule a medication transfer screening appointment.
The ADHD Evaluation Process
Step 1: Get on the waiting list
CAPS maintains a waiting list for our ADHD evaluation services which can vary in length depending on the time of the year. Wait time for evaluations can be 6-12 weeks.
You can get on the ADHD evaluation waiting list by:
- Talking with your current CAPS provider, if you have one.
- Scheduling a Counseling & Consultation appointment with a CAPS counselor. The counselor will ask you questions to help them understand what you are looking for, ensure you have the resources and support to manage your concerns while waiting for evaluation, and provide a full range of options.
Step 2: Complete ADHD evaluation screening
Once you're on the waiting list, you will receive a secure message through PatientLink when it's time to schedule a screening. It's important to respond to this message as you could be removed from the waiting list if no response is received.
Being on the waiting list doesn't automatically mean you complete the full evaluation. There is a 90-minute Zoom screening process where an ADHD evaluator will collect more detailed information about your symptoms and physical and mental health history. Through the ADHD screening appointment, we can ensure our services are a good fit and gather important context for interpreting test data if you proceed to the next step in the ADHD evaluation process.
Step 3: Onsite testing appointment
If a full evaluation is recommended, your next step after the screening will be to complete a 3-hour in-person testing appointment. During that appointment, you will complete tests that give your evaluator data they need to make or rule out a diagnosis of ADHD.
Step 4: Feedback session
After you have completed your evaluation, your ADHD evaluator will schedule a 1-hour Zoom feedback session where you will talk together about your test results, diagnosis, and recommendations. They will also provide you a finalized copy of your evaluation report.
The whole evaluation process for steps 2-4 (screening through feedback) typically takes 4-6 weeks, but may vary depending on the time of year and each student's situation.
ADHD Evaluation FAQ's
The major insurances accepted at CAPS often cover at least a portion of ADHD evaluations; however, check with your insurance provider for more details about what your specific plan will cover. Additionally, some insurances require prior authorization, so please ensure that you have uploaded your insurance information to PatientLink before you begin. If your insurance changes during the evaluation process, notify CAPS and your evaluation provider as soon as possible.
We offer a holistic evaluation of ADHD that may yield other diagnoses in the course of assessing your overall psychological functioning. However, ADHD is the primary focus of all of our evaluations. We do not assess for or diagnose Autism Spectrum Disorder or Specific Learning Disorders.
We provide an evaluation report which will include test results, any diagnoses we make, and recommendations for next steps.
The Disability Resource Center (DRC) determines all accommodations, and you do not need to complete testing in order to contact them. The evaluation report you will receive after testing will provide information that may help guide the conversation about potential accommodations with your access consultant, but will not dictate specific accommodations. If you are seeking accommodations for a non-University of Arizona purpose (i.e., an outside workplace, a national standardized exam, etc.), please discuss this with your evaluator at your first meeting with them.
Your first and third meeting are typically virtual. The second appointment, where testing is administered, takes place at CAPS North in our designated testing room on the 2nd floor of the NorthREC Center.
An evaluation may still be helpful in providing documentation of your diagnosis and a clearer understanding of your symptoms but is not necessary to transfer medication to CAPS. Call our front desk at 520-621-3334 to schedule a medication transfer screening.