[sockiemonster]

I was looking at my insurance options, seeing if I want to change insurers; I noticed that 2 out of my 3 options have a maximum # of office visits for outpatient mental health. I thought that the mental health parity act of 2008 stopped limiting the # of visit’s the insurance company allowed. Then I read that depending on when your insurance renews that that law doesn’t come into effect until Oct 2009 or Jan 2010, is this true? Sorry if this doesn’t make too much sense, I really don’t understand too much how insurance works. Thanks.

[DocJohn]

Yes, that's true. It's not an immediate effect and can be up to a year before it trickles down to your specific health insurance policy.

Blame it more on the bizarre patchwork that makes up the U.S. healthcare system more than anything else.

DocJohn

[Perna]

Ah, the "sunset provision". Also doesn't apply to small companies! The company you work for has to employ an average of over 50 employees.

http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/newsroom/fsmhparity.html

[lenjan]

Hope it's OK if I tag along on this thread, as I also have a question on the topic: Does the parity bill apply to state insurance? Because, unfortunately, when my state starts letting broke, single, childless adults on the plan starting in April, that's what I'm going to have to do for health care, and the booklet they sent me showed nothing resembling the rules put in place by the parity act.

I know that in some cases the federal law won't supersede the state ones, but I mean, after April 1, I won't even be able to have an inpatient stay covered via the good ol' state government. And they've got caps on the number of outpatient therapy sessions, etc.

The feds, in their infinite wisdom, don't consider me "disabled," so I don't get Medicare/caid/whatever the poor and disabled version is.

How frustrating this all is.