Signed into law in 2008, MHPAEA provides federal protections that stipulate mental health and substance use disorder benefits offered by employer health plans be on par with medical and surgical benefits. View the legislation. These protections build on the 1996 federal parity law which prohibits discriminatory annual and lifetime benefit limits for employers’ plans offering mental health coverage.

Interim final regulations clarifying how parity protections apply were issued in February 2010 Click Here.  These regulations provide strong consumer protections, with copays, deductibles, visit limits,  gatekeeper requirements and medical management included.

Who Receives Parity Protection

The Mental Health Parity protections passed in 2008 applied only to employee health plans covering 51 or more employees.  However, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, (the Affordable Care Act or ACA), expanded parity protections to new types of plans.

Consequently, parity protections will extend to individual and small group plans offered in the Exchange  –new marketplace for insurance created by the ACA — as well as to adult Medicaid managed care plans and coverage offered through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Read more details.

What Parity Means for Patients and Families

Consumers should understand and help monitor implementation of the law. Analysis of state-level mental health parity protections in New York found that many consumers and even health plan employees are unaware of the state benefit protections.  See the full report here. Monitoring implementation of the federal law will be equally important.

For resources to help you understand and monitor how federal mental health parity protections apply in your own health plan, visit: http://www.mentalhealthparitywatch.org/Understanding%20the%20Law/Pages/UnderstandingtheLaw.aspx (Parity Implementation Coalition site).