mental health parity

NPR's Michelle Andrews did an interview with Jennifer Mathis of Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law on the final rule from the federal government to enforce parity in health insurance coverage between physical health and mental health.

A couple interesting nuggets:

One- Since interim parity regulations came out, only a small percentage of plans have dropped mental health or substance use coverage.

Two- The final rules make clear in a way that the interim rules didn't that "intermediate-level mental health services, including residential treatment and intensive outpatient services," have to be covered in parity.

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 was supposed to ensure mental-health treatment and addiction-treatment services get the same coverage from insurers as physical ailments. "But five years after President George W. Bush signed the law, there is widespread agreement that it has fallen short of its goal of creating parity for mental health coverage," the New York Times reports. One of the issues is regulations to put meat on the bones of the statute have never been written by federal regulators.