The story illustrated the fact that insurers don’t cover mental health as well as physical health, and explored the impact this disparity has on internists’ ability to care for their patients. Internists said they deliberately miscoded depression diagnoses to avoid getting rejected by insurers, prescribed medication over psychotherapy because it was more likely to be covered, and spent hours on the phone with insurers to get patients admitted to the hospital. They also had a harder time caring for diabetic and heart disease patients who were mentally ill because these patients were worse at self-care than patients who were mentally healthy.
At the time the article was written, several bills were pending in the U.S. Congress to mandate that coverage for mental health be brought more in line with physical health. A sidebar summarized those bills.