Quick Question?

[Erik]

At the board meeting this last Sat. it was mentioned that there was
something in the latest "bail out" bill that was good news for
MFTer's.

I think it had something to do with Medicare. Can anyone help me
remember what that was? I can't find any news on it.

Thanks
Erik

[Art Tolentino]

Part of the bail out bill is the passage of mental health parity. It's good
in general for the mental health field and MFTs, but there's no language
inclusion in Medicare to add MFT as a mandated provider as far as I know. I
could be wrong though.

Art Tolentino, PhD

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[DavidJ]

The Mental Health Parity legislation embedded in the "bailout" bill is
actually for insurance benefits. Essentially, it says that mental
health and substance abuse benefits must be in parity with medical
benefits. As you may know currently MHOs can dictate the amount of
sessions you have with any given provider and often times behavioral
health co-pays and deductibles are higher than for physical health.
The idea is to get that on parity with medical benefits. Historically,
substance abuse benefits have had a dollar amount per calendar year or
benefit period and once you used that up you had no benefits left
whether treatment was complete or not. So this bill can hopefully
change that across the board. Quite frequently there are far more
denials of care for behavioral health than there are for physical
health. So this is a good thing for clients and providers alike. The
bad news is that MHOs can still either choose not to offer behavioral
health benefits (which is unlikely) but they can still decide which
diagnoses to cover. Oregon allegedly passed a mental health parity
bill last year I think. California has parity and if memory serves
several of the MHOs have diagnostic catergories that apply to parity.
People with Medicare either have open Medicare which is often not
managed or a Medicare Supplement or Medicare Advantage Plan that is
managed by an MHO. Art is correct that there is no language included
that mandates MFTs as providers or LPCs for that matter. It
specifically addresses the disparity between behavioral health and
physical health benefits. Hopefully this was helpful and that I got
all my facts straight.

David
former OAMFT board member

[Erik]

Ahhhh.

Thanks for the clarification. That makes much more sense to me now.

Thanks
Erik