New federal mental health parity regulations went into effect this month, requiring insurers to provide mental health and addiction benefits on par with medical and surgical benefits.
The regulations are the result of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which makes sweeping reforms to the previous federal mental health parity law of 1996.
According to the Office of the Connecticut Healthcare Advocate, health plans are prohibited from imposing different financial requirements on mental health access such as co-pays and deductibles, and they cannot arbitrarily limit the number of mental health visits a patient makes. Plans cannot put greater restrictions on mental health access than those for other medical services, such as excessive prior authorization requirements or restrictions on access to medications.
