The Biden Administration is now urging insurers to provide better mental health treatment access to Americans. To do this, the U.S. government proposed new rules that will require insurance companies to do just that.
Biden Admin Wants Better Mental Health Treatment Access
According to Reuters' latest report, U.S. President Joe Biden is pushing health insurance companies to enhance access to mental health treatment.
He said that this should be provided, especially to Americans who are having a hard time affording and finding the mental health care they need.
On Tuesday, July 25, the Biden Admin proposed new regulations. But, these rules still need to go through a public comment period, as reported by the Associated Press.
Once they are finalized, the regulations will require health insurance companies to study if their consumers have equal access to mental and medical health benefits.
This means that they could change the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act since insurers will be urged to ensure that all their consumers have equal coverage for physical and mental health care.
The Difficulty of Getting Mental Health Care
A recent study, which was published in July, revealed that over 2,800 American patients with insurance are having a hard time getting the mental health care services they need.
CNBC reported that around 40% of these individuals are enrolled in insurance by their employers.
Despite this, they still need to seek expensive mental health care, as well as substance abuse treatment outside their insurance.
Over 50% of these Americans also complained that their insurance providers don't cover their mental health or substance abuse services; rejecting their requests three or more times.
Meanwhile, almost 60% of them claimed that their insurance providers never assisted them in getting mental health care or substance abuse treatment.
This is why the Biden Administration proposed the new rules so that health insurance providers will put more effort into assisting their consumers.
"Despite the repeated bipartisan efforts aimed at mental health parity, insurers too often make it difficult to access mental health treatment, causing millions of consumers to seek care out-of-network," said the White House in its rule proposal.
These new rules are expected to be open for public comment for the next 60 days. After that, Biden Administration officials said that these regulations will go into effect.
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