According to mental health advocacy group Mental Health America, millions are suffering due to disparity in access to mental health services. The group's new state-by-state report concluded that state insurance exchanges need to be more proactive about ensuring that coverage includes a strong component of mental health services.
Mental Health America advocated for four actions to be taken immediately which, it said, would begin to transform this rampant disparity in mental health services into parity. Those are:
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1. Expand Medicaid and provide insurance to individuals with mental illness. "Without insurance, individuals are more likely to wait until a mental health crisis and use costly services such as emergency hospital visits, and are less likely to have access to early intervention."
2. Health plan carriers need to offer broader coverage, "particularly to include evidence-based community mental health services. Treatment provided, whether in the public or private system, should focus on prevention and early intervention services. … Health plan carriers should include sufficiently broad networks of mental health professional in their plans."
3. Collection of data "on quality and performance measures of both the private and public mental health systems should be systematically collected and made publicly available. Collecting and making data publicly available will illuminate how various policies, such as transitioning to Medicaid Managed Care, are strengthening parity or increasing disparity across the states."
4. Create greater transparency in insurance coverage to "increase meaningful consumer choice and reduce unfair burden on the consumer."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
