Skip to main content

Mental Health and Addiction Care are Poorly Covered by Insurance Networks [statnews.com]

 

By Patrick Kennedy, STAT, December 10, 2019

More than 70,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2017, yet insurers spent only 1% of their total health care dollars on treatment for substance use disorders — a decrease from two years earlier.

This alarming statistic is just one of many in a new report released by Milliman, an independent actuarial firm. The report confirms that insurers have failed to adequately cover lifesaving care even as U.S. life expectancy declined over the past three years, primarily due to overdoses and suicides.

Milliman researchers analyzed five years of insurer claims data from 2013 to 2017 covering 37 million U.S. employees and family members who receive health insurance from their employers. They looked at four categories of treatment — inpatient and outpatient facility services, primary care office visits, and specialist office visits — and compared the level of out-of-network use for behavioral health versus physical health.

[Please click here to read more.]

Add Comment

Comments (3)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Tina, I'll have a chance to educate a few doctors in the job I start next week just up the road from your sister (Calumet). I'll be a behavioral health provider in a health clinic there. There is also a local ACE education group trying their best to get the word out. I was working for a small agency and could only bill medicaid because of only having a LLMSW. I never could get more than a dozen clients a week. 

Rich Featherly posted:

Medicaid in Michigan covers mental illness and addiction well and because of low income and/or large families in my rural area 500 miles from the state capital, lots of people are on Medicaid. Maybe someday, everyone will be covered as well.

Yes but if it doesn't provide treatment that actually treats developmental trauma, is it really effective?   I don't think so.   I lived in the UP for 5 yeas. My sister lives in L'Anse.  Rural MI has a lot of need.  The people who go to doctors for assistance, IDK if they are actually getting the help they need because I no longer believe that doctors even know what will help complexly traumatized patients.  https://www.psychotherapynetwo...-of-trauma-treatment

Medicaid in Michigan covers mental illness and addiction well and because of low income and/or large families in my rural area 500 miles from the state capital, lots of people are on Medicaid. Maybe someday, everyone will be covered as well.

Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×