Report: Health insurers biased in treating mental-health

PROVIDENCE -- Health insurers continue to discriminate against individuals in need of mental-health services and the professionals that provide them, a new report from the Mental Health Association of Rhode Island finds. Social stigma persists, according to the report, from the association's RI Parity Initiative.

Championed by then-Rep. Patrick Kennedy, Congress in 2008 passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires insurers to cover treatment for mental-health conditions just as they do medical conditions. But the new report found a pattern of violation in Rhode Island. Other studies have come to the same conclusion, here and throughout the U.S.

"Despite the law's requirement that insurers cover mental health, including addiction treatment, no more restrictively than they do medical and surgical treatment," said MHARI head Laurie-Marie Pisciotta, "our findings show that insurers continue to restrict access to care through strategies such as arbitrarily limiting the number of days a patient can see a provider or denying residential treatment, among other strategies."

Some three dozen patients and 25 professionals participated in the latest study, which involved focus groups and was overseen by Ernestine Jennings, a Brown University research scientist, staff psychologist at Miriam Hospital and an MHARI board member.

The report makes several recommendations, including:

"Notification of consumers' rights as well as federal and state parity laws by insurers to consumers and providers.

"More frequent and detailed examinations by the Health Insurance Commissioner of compliance by insurers, especially for provider reimbursement, network adequacy, and patient cost sharing.

"Removal by insurers of burdensome prior authorization and case management requirements that are not productive or are contrary to achieving parity.

"Simplify and standardize patient/provider authorization, claims, and appeals processes and improve transparency of plan benefits and restrictions.

"Increase state funding for behavioral health systems improvements and expansion -- particularly for outpatient services -- and investment in efforts to change public attitudes about mental health.

"Expand prevention and wellness incentives, such as gym memberships, to include mental health focused activities such as mindfulness-based stress reduction programs."

Clinical psychologist Peter Oppenheimer, chair of the Coalition of Mental Health Professionals of Rhode Island, said: "Mental health professionals and physicians have been advocating for a long time to remove barriers and to gain access to the resources we need to serve our community. Our efforts to integrate mental health and substance use services with primary care, and to create a broad range of services flounder due to these barriers and lack of resources. It's time for Rhode Island to implement parity in practice."

Read the full report at http://bit.ly/2JrDA8H

___

(c)2019 The Providence Journal (Providence, R.I.)

Visit The Providence Journal (Providence, R.I.) at www.projo.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.