Pages - mentalhealthparity

Problems accessing mental health Benefits?

Uncertain about your substance use disorder benefits?

Been denied coverage or had Trouble getting your plan's medical necessity criteria?

For Questions or concerns about the parity coverage law

Send an email to info@mentalhealthparitywatch.org or
Call 866.882.6227 to leave a voice mail message.

We will reply to all emails and phone calls.

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New GAO Report finds Employers' insurance coverage maintained or enhanced since Parity Act,
but effect of coverage on enrollees varied. [Nov 30, 2011].

New DOL FAQs answer questions from stakeholders regarding nonquantitative treatment limitations,
and one other common question.

Individual consumer complaints should be directed to one of the following:

Compliance

Patton Boggs-PIC Analysis of the 8 Most Common Compliance Issues

Parity Appeals Toolkit. A resource designed to help consumers learn about their rights and benefits under law; file complaints; appeal denied claims. [posted 10.12.2010]

The toolkit includes

an overview of the parity law

strategies for winning disputes with insurance plans

details on the appeals process

model appeals letters

consumer check lists [...more]

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If you are a patient or provider who has complaints with a group health plan’s mental health and / or substance use coverage benefits we would like to hear from you. Your reports will help us identify to federal regulators potential patterns of critical concern.

And, depending on the nature of your complaint, we may be able to provide help in resolving your problem or point you to other resources.

Visit our online resources to learn

what the federal law covers;
how a state's law works with the federal parity act*;
what's involved in filing an insurance claim with your health plan when benefits have been deniedl;
when an external review is warranted;
what it means to file an ERISA claim.

We will reply to all emails and phone calls.

Please note that while the provisions of the Parity Act (Public Law 110-343) went into effect for most plans January 1, 2010, the interim final regulations , which explain how the Act's requirements are to be applied, were not issued until February 2010. Without federal guidance on how to intrepret the Act's requirements in time for the 2010 plan coverage year, plans were therefore only held to make a good faith effort to be in compliance with the Act until the regulations were in effect on July 1, 2010.

*Unless otherwise specified references to “the Mental Health Parity Act,” “the Parity Act,” or “the Act,” are to The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

Disclaimer: The information contained on the mentalhealthparitywatch.org website is not intended as, and is not, a substitute for professional legal advice. Members of the Parity Implementation Coalition, including the American Psychiatric Association (APA), are not responsible for any actions or inaction on your part based on the information presented on this website.

We make every effort to verify the accuracy of information we post. With respect to the Website, the Parity Implementation Coalition and the APA assume no responsibility for any error, defect, interruption, deletion, delay in operation or transmission, theft, communications line failure, or destruction of data, or any unauthorized access to, or alteration of, any communications. Under no circumstances will the Parity Implementation Coalition or the APA be responsible for any loss or damage resulting from any use of the Website, any content posted on the Website by or transmitted to, or any interactions between, any users of the Website, whether online or offline. The Parity Implementation Coaliation and the APA neither represent, warrant, covenant, guarantee, nor promise any specific results from use of the Website.

If you reach an error page, find a broken link, or have other problems with this site, send an email to hsf@psych.org.

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