Too many who need mental healthcare can’t access it

The roots of many societal problems are intertwined with the current state of our nation’s broken mental health system. This is an issue that crosses geographic, partisan, gender and socio-economic lines—and it impacts millions of Americans.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 5 Americans suffer with a mental health condition each year. We have made substantial progress in recent years with the passage of the 21st Century Cures Act, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, and the Support for Patients and Communities Act. Additionally, Congress has allocated $10.7 billion to address addiction since 2018 and has passed legislation that improves access to mental health treatment (including alternative and complementary treatments) for veterans.

However, suicide rates are still on the rise in many parts of the country, and the number of overdose deaths throughout our nation are staggering. Tragically, millions of Americans who need it do not have access to adequate mental health and substance abuse treatment. I mention the issues of mental health and substance abuse together because so many individuals have co-occurring conditions. It makes sense to look at these issues in tandem and to develop meaningful solutions. This has been a priority of mine, and I am working on bipartisan legislation that I believe will help.

As part of removing the stigma for treating mental illness, we must ensure that mental health needs are recognized as legitimate healthcare issues. One way to do that is to ensure parity between coverage for healthcare and mental healthcare services—which happens to be the law. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act was signed into law in 2008, but more than a decade later, some health plans and insurers are still violating the law with plans that do not provide equal coverage for mental and medical care.

I recently filed bipartisan legislation to address this issue. The Mental Health Parity Compliance Act will improve enforcement of the requirement that mental health coverage not be more restrictive than other types of medical care. It requires health plans and insurers to conduct in-depth analyses to ensure plans are compliant and directs the HHS and Labor Department secretaries to request these analyses if there are patient complaints about noncompliant plans.

The legislation is based on a best-practice approach that has been enacted in state legislatures in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, New Jersey and Tennessee. It protects patients and ensures health insurance companies are following a law intended to support access to critical mental health services.

Addressing the provider shortage is also crucial. In some parts of the country, patients seeking mental healthcare, particularly children, have to wait months to see a psychiatrist. Fixing this issue is complex, and we are doing more in the areas of recruitment and retention within this critical shortage field. However, a measure I am working on will also help improve access. My legislation would allow Medicare and Medicaid to reimburse for telehealth services for a patient with any mental health issue.

Currently, telehealth reimbursements are limited to those with an opioid addiction diagnosis. By expanding the use of telemedicine, we can ensure patients receive more timely help.

Fixing our broken mental health system is not a simple task, but we must rise to the challenge. The stakes are too high for us not to do so. Lives are being lost, families have been ripped apart and money has been wasted in an ineffective attempt to arrest our way out of the problem instead of giving people access to the care they need. We can and must do better, and I will not rest until we do.

More commentaries from members of the 116th Congress on the state of healthcare