An overwhelming majority of Americans want parity. A large study found that almost 90% of Americans reported that mental health and non-mental health care were equally important to them in terms of their overall well-being. At the same time nearly a third of those Americans surveyed felt that mental health care was inaccessible and 40% felt that it was something that …
Parity Website
We ran across information about a new website that is drawing attention to the issue of mental health parity and that is dedicated to helping people get the behavioral health treatment they need – Paritytrack.org. The essence of the federal law that requires mental health parity in insurance coverage is not that mental health needs to have a certain level of …
Mental Health Problems and Physical Health
An incredibly well researched article in the journal JAMA Psychiatry summarized a body of research on the impact of mental health conditions on overall mortality in the world population and concluded that roughly 10% of all mortality was related to mental health problems. As I’ve recently been wrestling with problems helping people get access to treatment I thought it might …
Mental Health Parity Victory in California
On September 10th the California Supreme Court let stand a California Appeals Court decision that the California mental health parity law requires coverage of treatment that may have no equivalent in other medical specialties. Specifically, the Appeals Court held that Blue Shield of California must cover residential treatment for eating disorders. The Court noted that residential treatment was among the …
Parity Final Rules Issued
Mental Health Parity Final Rules were issued by the Obama Administration on November 9th, 2013. Here is a preliminary summary of the rules and their implications, based in large part on the analysis of the American Psychiatric Association’s Government Affairs Department. We were also lucky enough to have an experienced attorney with a lot of knowledge of health care law …
Make Good on Parity
Today marks the 5th anniversary of the mental health parity bill which was to have ensured access to mental health services for all Americans with health insurance. Remarkably, the Obama administration has yet to issue the final regulations that will define how parity is implemented. In a very thoughtful piece published today in “The Hill” (a blog for lawmakers), former Representative …