Limited Resources Thwart State Mental Health Parity Enforcement

  • Oct 21, 2022

    While some state officials have had more success than others, most states struggle to enforce mental health parity requirements set by federal law, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center for Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). One of the report’s authors and a mental health patient advocate both say that states need more resources to enforce parity requirements. 

    State officials have the responsibility of enforcing federal statutes such as the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) in the individual and fully funded employer health plan markets. Many states also have their own parity statutes as well. However, as the report puts it, “federal and state regulators have found that enforcing the complex law is challenging. While insurers’ quantitative barriers to treatment such as cost-sharing or visit limits can be relatively straightforward for regulators to assess, certain ‘non-quantitative’ treatment limits [NQTLs], such as the use of prior authorization, provider reimbursement, and formulary design are much more difficult.” 

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  • Peter Johnson

    Peter has worked as a journalist since 2011 and has covered health care since 2020. At AIS Health, Peter covers trends in finance, business and policy that affect the health insurance and pharma sectors. For Health Plan Weekly, he covers all aspects of the U.S. health insurance sector, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage and the Affordable Care Act individual marketplaces. In Radar on Drug Benefits, Peter covers the operations of (and conflicts between) pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical manufacturers, with a particular focus on pricing dynamics and market access. Before joining AIS Health, Peter covered transportation, public safety and local government for various outlets in Seattle, his hometown and current place of residence. He graduated with a B.A. from Colby College.

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