On the Los Angeles Times Booster Shots blog, Shari Roan writes about a recent scholarly review of California’s mental health parity law that illuminates lessons that will be key to the success of the upcoming national mental health parity law. The California law has been in place for five years.
Roan summarizes the most important of these lessons, including the accuracy of price estimates and the lack of public awareness about the program. The study considers the views of consumers, insurers and providers as well as the public at large.
The national mental health parity law, the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (HR 6983), is intended to prevent discrimination against patients seeking treatment for mental illness by prohibiting “insurers and group health plans from imposing treatment or financial limitations when they offer mental health benefits that are more restrictive from those applied to medical and surgical services.”
However, as MIWatch.org reports, the three federal agencies that are supposed to write the regulations to implement the act missed an Oct. 3 deadline. The law will go into effect in January.
