The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury have jointly issued a final rule increasing parity between mental health/substance use disorder benefits and medical/surgical benefits in group and individual health plans.
The final rule implements the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, and ensures that health plan features like copays, deductibles and visit limits are generally not more restrictive for mental health/substance abuse disorders benefits than they are for medical/surgical benefits.
The joint action also includes specific additional consumer protections, such as:
- Ensuring that parity applies to intermediate levels of care received in residential treatment or intensive outpatient settings;
- Clarifying the scope of the transparency required by health plans, including the disclosure rights of plan participants, to ensure compliance with the law;
- Clarifying that parity applies to all plan standards, including geographic limits, facility-type limits and network adequacy; and
- Eliminating an exception to the existing parity rule that was determined to be confusing, unnecessary and open to abuse.
By issuing this rule, the administration has now completed or made significant progress on all 23 executive actions included in the President and Vice President's plan to reduce gun violence, the press announcement said.