Little known fact about the ACA: it represents a huge expansion of mental health and substance
Last edited Wed Sep 11, 2013, 02:54 PM - Edit history (5)
use coverage.
More than 62 million Americans are expected to benefit from the ACA's new mental health benefits, either by purchasing an individual policy on the exchange (which now must cover mental health and substance abuse costs at parity with other medical coverage) or by benefiting from other provisions of the ACA that will require their current policies to cover mental health benefits as they do other medical costs.
Also, it will cover psychologists and other mental health professionals -- not just M.D.'s.
Please note: plans WILL differ in which providers they use and the benefits they offer. If you're purchasing an individual policy from the exchange, it's important to compare benefits carefully and to make sure your provider is one of them.
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Health_Care_Reform
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) commonly called the new health law or the Affordable Care Act, was signed into U.S. law on March 23, 2010. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, the law is intended to increase access to health insurance coverage for Americans and is aimed at reducing the costs of health care.
For people living with mental illness, the law will result in health insurance coverage for some services and treatments that have traditionally been denied or were not included in health insurance coverage in the past. The law has a significant impact on all health insurance plans, including public sector (Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP, VA and other health care) as well as private sector health insurance plans.
The ACA will result in many changes that will take place over time. Some of these changes began in 2010 and others will take place through 2014. This information has been created to help individuals and families affected by mental illness to better understand these changes and to prepare for those that will be coming.
SNIP
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2013/mental/rb_mental.cfm
About one-third of those who are currently covered in the individual market have no coverage for substance use disorder services and nearly 20 percent have no coverage for mental health services, including outpatient therapy visits and inpatient crisis intervention and stabilization.[3] In addition, even when individual market plans provide these benefits, the federal parity law does not apply to these plans to ensure that coverage for mental health and substance use disorder services is generally comparable to coverage for medical and surgical care.
SNIP
In total, through the Affordable Care Act, 32.1 million Americans will gain access to coverage that includes mental health and/or substance use disorder benefits that comply with federal parity requirements and an additional 30.4 million Americans who currently have some mental health and substance abuse benefits will benefit from the federal parity protections. By building on the structure of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, the Affordable Care Act will extend federal parity protections to 62 million Americans.
http://www.apapracticecentral.org/advocacy/reform/patient-protection.aspx
March 31, 2010 — On March 23, President Obama signed H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law. This historic health care reform law is the result of months of intense congressional discussion, committee and floor action, and debate. During this legislative process, the American Psychological Association Practice Organization (APAPO) worked to preserve psychologist practice and payment while seeking new opportunities for practicing psychologists in the health care system.
We are pleased to report that our efforts have preserved Medicare psychotherapy payments for psychologists, protected traditional psychological practice, and opened up new opportunities for psychologists in the private health care system and in public health programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Here is a brief overview of what the new health reform law does and some of the key provisions that benefit practicing psychologists and consumers of psychological services.
SNIP
Provider nondiscrimination. Health plans may no longer discriminate against psychologists and other health providers with respect to plan participation (section 1201, as adding section 2706 to the Public Health Service Act). While this provision does not require a health plan to contract with every available health care provider, it does prevent health plans from excluding an entire type of provider from its network. APAPO has worked for many years with other non-physician advocacy organizations for this provider protection and is pleased that it is now federal law through PPACA.
SNIP
= new reply since forum marked as read
