A group of Senate Democrats wants to know when the federal government will finalize a nearly year-old proposed rule to toughen enforcement of mental health parity laws.
The Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury departments announced the draft regulation last July. The White House even touted it, signaling mental health parity as a priority for President Joe Biden. Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.), Peter Welch (Vt.), Alex Padilla (Calif.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Tina Smith (Minn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Ben Ray Luján (N.M.) would like them to pick up the pace.
Related: Why insurers’ mental health coverage falls short
"We urge the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury to finalize these strong parity rules as soon as possible, which will go a long way in our shared effort to address the ongoing mental health and substance use disorder (MH/SUD) crisis in this country," the senators wrote HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, Assistant Labor Secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa Gomez and IRS Deputy Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell on Thursday.
Murphy, Markey, Smith and Luján are members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has jurisdiction over health insurance and employee benefits policy. HHS, Labor, Treasury and the IRS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“A recent review of commercial insurance claims shows that insurers continue to fall short on mental health parity,” the senators wrote. “For example, Americans seeking care from a psychiatrist were forced to go out of network to obtain care 8.9 times more often than for medical/surgical specialists, and telehealth services were 4.7 times more likely to be out of network in cases where the patient was receiving mental health services.”
The proposed rule would mandate that health insurance companies determine whether their members have access to mental healthcare that is equivalent to their access to other types of care, and to modify coverage if they do not. That could include adding more providers to their networks, boosting reimbursements for mental health services, and relaxing prior authorization and utilization management requirements.
When they published the regulation last year, HHS, Labor and Treasury asserted a new regulation is necessary because of widespread noncompliance with parity laws at time when demand for behavioral healthcare is spiking.
“These rules will close existing loopholes in the law, expand narrow networks and prohibit restrictive practices that prevent families from accessing care," the senators wrote. “These common-sense parity rules will help Americans suffering from mental health conditions or substance use disorder, reduce costs for taxpayers, and save lives.”
Several federal statutes govern mental health parity, including the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, the Affordable Care Act of 2010, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The proposed rule derives from the 2008 and 2021 laws, according to a Federal Register notice published last August.
