Insurance plays a large role in covering costs for mental health care, and in fact, there's a law that makes sure providers provide adequate coverage. The catch? There's a pretty easy work-around.
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| www.psychiatry.org |
Health insurance varies from provider to provider but typically it works like this: if the provider of your choice does in fact cover mental health care, they'll cover what they deem "medically necessary" after you've paid your deductible. For example, say your deductible is $4,000. When that is paid out of pocket, your insurance provider will pay for your prescription medication, but maybe not an ambulance ride. It all depends on what your provider states. Having unreliable insurance in terms of mental health care coverage makes it much harder for those who are in need of mental health care to get it.
This is where the Parity Law comes in to play. It requires insurance companies to "treat mental and behavioral health and substance use disorder coverage equal to (or better than) medical/surgical coverage". Unfortunately, not all providers follow this law. It's because insurance providers aren't required to cover behavior health in the first place. For providers who don't cover mental health, the Parity Law doesn't apply. But for those that do, it simply asks them to make sure their coverage for mental health is equal to their coverage for physical health. Luckily, the Affordable Care Act, passed under the Obama Administration in 2010, now requires all health insurance providers to cover mental health, and most providers originally had mental health coverage before the Parity Law was enacted in 2008.
Even in present day 2017, it's still a difficult balancing act between government funding and insurance providers, as many Americans can't afford the important care they need with the funding in place today.
Future Research Question: What specific provisions are in the ACA, Medicare, Medicaid, and Mental Health Block Grants for mental health?
