Mental Health Parity Act May Affect Your Medical Benefits

By Tammy Worth, Special to The Los Angeles Times

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, by some estimates, could affect the health coverage of approximately 113 million Americans. Exactly how it will affect them, though, will vary widely.

The purpose of the law, which went into effect in July, is to create equal coverage between medical/surgical services and mental health-care services. The legislation requires group insurance plans to offer the same deductibles, co-payments, frequency of treatments and days of outpatient services. The act does not mandate mental health coverage, just equality if it is offered by an employer.

Other provisions of the bill require out-of-network coverage for mental health services, parity of coverage of medical and mental health medications, and if someone is denied coverage of a mental health service that is deemed medically unnecessary by the insurer, patients have the right to find out why.

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