Americans Unaware of New Psychotherapy Insurance Coverage Rules
January 29th, 2011
A bill that was signed into law during 2008 is now in full effect as of January 1st, 2011. It’s called the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, and it’s pretty notable as insurance coverage for mental health is concerned. Among other things, it requires insurance policies offering mental health coverage to charge the same rates they do for physical health coverage. Previously, many policies charged higher out-of-pocket rates for counseling and therapy. Despite having made occasional news appearances during the past several months, the law is virtually unknown to the average American, says the American Psychological Association. In a survey of almost 3,000 adults, only about 10% had any idea that their access to therapy and counseling had broadened as a result of the act.
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Comments
I had no idea about this! Why did our insurance companies not have to inform us of these changes? Well they probably did but they probably hid it so well that none of us would ever know that there was anything there that we as health care consumers could take advantage of.
This is the reason why awareness and spreading information about something new is so important. You know, a lot of people surely would have already missed the opportunity to make use of this new act in this month.
it makes sense to run this kind of an awareness campaign on television and on the internet…these media are the ones to which almost everybody has access to and it would make everybody aware of the new beneficial act…
Add another tip, like let’s do away with all of this insurance nonsense and just provide the care the the citizens of this country deserve.
Knowledge is power. No doubt about that. And knowledge about something like this becomes very important.
Not only is this important in financial terms, but it gains all the more importance because a lot of people will have a tough time paying fees out of their pocket due to the ongoing meltdown.
Although no single agency can be blamed for this lack of information,I believe this is a combination of the government’s ignorance,insurance companies’ conspiracy and also the general public’s apathy towards such things.
lack of awareness right now is not a great deal if you ask me. its only been a month after all. but there is a big positive in this new act-insurance for mental health care at the same prices! this is a big thing for those who have been campaigning and fighting for such an act.
I see a lot of people discuss on thousands on blogs and other websites just because there is a new gadget in the market and this big an act recieves no exposure? This is just absurd!
The average person ignores information regarding recently passed laws because it’s too boring a topic to them. What bugs me though is why it took nearly 3 years to come into full effect. These kinds of things should be fast tracked to reduce that down to within months, not years.
Why don’t they put up notices like these in the hospital? I was in and out one of them recently and I just heard about this, maybe because I don’t watch the news. That’s the perfect place to spread the news and more useful than reading a 1975 National Geographic in the waiting room.
A reason for the apathy over this news might be that all the healthcare reform news has oversaturated the media. I admit it. If I see anything in the news that involves the words health and insurance, I just mutter “folks are going on about the reform again” and ignore it without reading it fully. Others were probably doing that too, not realizing this was something we very much needed to hear.
Mental health is seen as a cash cow by more doctors than is acceptable IMHO. Call me cynical if you like. I feel because there is often nothing to see externally in mental health to the untrained eye, they can just mark up the prices all they like. Kaching! That causes trouble with insurance companies that don’t like the high costs involved, and insurance companies can cause more upset by then denying claims rather than approving them.
Let’s have a second law that requires all the affected insurance companies to send a crystal clear and highly visible letter to all of their customers saying “A recent change in the law has required us to notify you of the following changes”. Then list all the ways they’ve been beaten down on for abusing their own systems. Make them take out full page ads too in the newspapers.
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