Mental Health Parity FAQ

What Exactly is Mental Health Parity and What Can I Do to Help?

CONNECT AND BE COUNTED Click the link below to send a letter to your legislators. It’s quick, easy and extremely important.  Be sure to write to both your Representatives and Senators. Click here to connect and be counted!

[Published February 18, 2007] -  What is Mental Health Parity? Mental Health Parity legislation (the Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act)  would require full insurance coverage for mental illnesses by eliminating restrictions on annual and lifetime mental health benefits.  

Under this measure, full insurance benefits would be provided for mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, major depression and other mental illnesses. Insurers would be required to fully reimburse services at the same level set for the treatment of other physical conditions.  The proposal would also prohibit limits on the number of inpatient days and outpatient visits for mental health treatment in general.

Will passage of this legislation affect everyone living with depression and bipolar disorder or another mental illness?

Mental Health Parity would apply only to businesses or organizations that already have group health plans that already provide mental health benefits.  Businesses with 50 or more employees would be required to adhere to this legislation once it becomes a law.

While this means that there will still be many consumers that will not be helped with this legislation, passage is still a very big victory for the mental health community.  Currently most consumers face discrimination such as limited coverage, higher co-pays than other illnesses, restricted access to hospitalization as well as limits on the number of doctor visits and the time for inpatient and outpatient visits.

How will Mental Health Parity Help Me?

While passage of Mental Health Parity may not directly help you at this time it opens the door for all of us paving the way for fair and equitable coverage in the future.  It will also help the next generation so that they will not have to live out their lives depending on the public mental health system.  It may prevent others from being on disability or in staying in public institutions, unable to get the very care that would give them back productive lives.

What Can I Do Now to Help Ensure this Legislation is passed in Congress?

You can immediately help by taking a few minutes to send your legislators a letter telling them that mental health matters and that it’s time to pass this important legislation.

Right now, go to DBSA’s Legislative Action Center, the LAC, and contact your legislators.  The Center will provide you with detailed information on your legislators from everything to their marital status to the mental health legislation they currently support, or have supported in the past.

If you don't know your legislators, the LAC will help you find them - all you need is your address or ZIP+4.  Once on the LAC, click on the Action Alert box, located near the LAC’s homepage, that says, Mental Health Parity Must Come Up for Consideration!

Or enter the following url in your browser: http://capwiz.com/ndmda/issues/alert/?alertid=9387896

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!