Who Needs Mental Health Parity?
The vast majority of insurers and health plans cover at least a limited amount of mental health care. According to a recent employer survey published in the journal Health Affairs: • 91 percent of small firms (10-499 employees) and 99 percent of large firms offer mental health and substance abuse coverage in their most used medical plans. • Mental health and substance abuse coverage was included in 87 percent of indemnity plans, 88 percent of HMOs, 97 percent of Point of Service (POS) plans and 93 percent of Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs). Thus most employees who have employer-based health insurance have access to mental health coverage, and many of the employees who don’t have coverage choose not to join an employer’s plan that includes mental health care. But what about small employers who were exempted from the Mental Health Parity Act? Most of them come under state law rather than federal law – because they are too small to self-insure – and most states have a mental healt
