Quote:
Originally Posted by dragonfly2
And the only way that will happen is to change the nomenclature to something like "brain-based disease". That's the whole basis for mental health insurance parity laws. Even insurers who are required to offer comparable insurance for 'mental disorders' as they do 'physical disorders' only have to do it for those illnesses determined by some doughnut-stuffed committee to be brain-based. The sooner we push to be on the same playing field as things like epilepsy,  |
I had no idea there are parity laws! My insurance (a OK-ish insurance that a small company in the US can buy for its employees) offers outstanding benefits for preventive care - I did not pay a penny for digital mammography, an expensive procedure, and immunizations are free - and pays OK for non-preventive medical care in "non-mental" fields. Mental health? First, the disease has to be considered "serious" to be covered; luckily, BP is (I do not know their criteria, probably they believe that Axis I is serious although I hear that there is advocacy to put borderline on the map). If it is an in-network provider, very good coverage but there are virtually no providers who would take this plan because it pays measly amounts to THEM. I have found one such provider from a long list, no one else was interested. But OK, coverage is great, but there are 20 (standard in the US) visits per year, and that includes COMBINED pdoc, tdoc, and hospitalization. I need to see pdoc frequently, sometimes weekly, so I end up paying the tdoc (who is non in-network anyway) out-of-pocket because I save my days for the more expensive pdoc. If the local research hospital's special BP clinic decides to accept me, I will have virtually no coverage because they are out-of-network, and very expensive at that. This is all a standard California policy, so where is parity? In states like Massachussets? And you are right, we should be like Epilepsy, many of us even take anticonvulsant drugs, so what is the difference?