Legislature Passes Mental Health Parity Bill
By: Source: AARP.org Date Posted: 2007-07-23 15:08:43.675814-04:00
After 15 years of failing for find consensus on the issue, the North Carolina General Assembly has passed legislation requiring employee private health insurance policies to treat some mental illnesses as they do physical disorders.
AARP North Carolina has advocated on behalf of mental health parity for several years, so the measure's passage represents a substantial - if incomplete - legislative victory for the organization.
"This legislation does not include everything we wanted, but it's a big, big step forward," said Mary Bethel, Associate State Director for Advocacy for AARP North Carolina. "People are so much more open to seeking mental health treatment nowadays than they used to be, and this means a lot of working people will be able to get the help they need and remain productive."
Few private insurance policies for North Carolina workers now cover mental illnesses for more than short periods of time, and current policies frequently impose a lifetime cap that can be used up within the course of one hospitalization. Under the new legislation, insurance policies will have to give nine of the most common mental illnesses the same coverage as physical ailments.
The nine illnesses covered at "full parity" are bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, paranoid and other psychotic disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, post traumatic stress disorder, anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Other mental illnesses would be covered at "financial parity' - meaning deductibles, coinsurance factors, co-payments, maximum out-of-pocket as well as annual and lifetime limits must be the same as for physical illnesses -although insurance companies can set annual limits of 30 office visits and 30 days in the hospital for these diagnoses.
One aspect of the measure that disappointed AARP and other mental health parity advocates is that the bill does not cover treatment for substance abuse. Also, companies that are self-insured and covered under federal law will not have to comply with the new state mandate. However, the bill does include businesses with 25 or fewer employees, which were excluded from an earlier version of the measure.
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