In 2008, Congress enacted the The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) to ensure that insurance companies cover mental health and substance use treatment no differently than they do other medical conditions. MHPAEA is a federal law that generally prevents group health plans and health insurance issuers that provide mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits from imposing less favorable benefit limitations on those benefits than on medical/surgical benefits.
It is now 2016, and we’ve got a long way to go to make parity a reality. There are still disparities between the accessibility and coverage of MH/SUD treatment versus other medical care.
You can do something about it.
Last month, President Obama created a Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Parity Task Force tasked with increasing awareness about comparable insurance coverage, improving understanding of requirements for health plans, and increasing transparency around compliance with the law.
The President’s Task Force wants to hear from you, from patients, families, consumer advocates, health care providers, insurers, and other stakeholders on their experiences and difficulties with accessing services and coverage.
Share your comments, experiences, and recommendations with the Task Force. Or, submit your comments by sending an email to parity@hhs.gov.
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Minnesota Recovery Connection
