Based on Federal legislation as of January 1, 2010, parity should be in place covering mental health benefits the same way that insurance plans cover other medical benefits. Here is a snippet from the Psychiatric News article which appeared in the January 15, 2010 issue:
APA's Office of Healthcare Systems and Financing has created a Web site to monitor the implementation of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (Parity Act). The purpose of the site is to make certain that health insurers covered by the act are providing benefits in compliance with the law. The law requires that any group health plan that covers more than 50 employees and offers mental health and/or substance use disorders coverage must provide that coverage with no greater financial requirements (i.e., copays, deductibles, annual or lifetime dollar limits) or treatment limitations (i.e., number of visits) than the predominant requirements that it applies to substantially all medical/surgical benefits.
Although the Parity Act became effective for most plans on January 1, regulations that explain how it is to be implemented had not been published by late December 2009. Thus health insurance carriers, which had to have their 2010 plan benefits in place before there were any regulations, may have been confused about exactly what it means to provide mental health and substance abuse benefits that are equivalent to the medical and surgical benefits they offer.
New York State has had Timothy's law in place for over a year now which already assures parity in New York State.
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