Miscellaneous

Parity On, Dude!

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Congress, consumers, and the legal and medical communities have been debating parity for decades. When insurance covers physical, but not (often underlying) mental ailments, patients fall through the cracks. The falling causes a ripple effect touching employment, families, education, and neighborhoods -- everything we touch. Law enforcement and the legal system are called on to fix a sinkhole with Silly Putty.

What does this mean for courts? What if parity = beds?

One of the challenges courts face in dealing with parties suffering from substance abuse and/or mental illness is space. Where will people stay? Are there enough beds in a long-term facility or halfway house? Are there enough spaces in an outpatient program? All the least-restrictive alternatives and discharge plans one can imagine don't mean a thing if there's no room for new patients in them.

Money plus demand drives availability of services. If insurers anticipate paying as much for mental health as they do for physical, then it stands to reason (or at least wishful thinking) that more mental health help will become available once parity is established on a broader basis. If nothing else, broad parity laws mean that intellectually we've determined that mental health is as real an issue as its somatic counterpart.

See Congress Passes Mental Health Parity Bill, Jacob Goldstein, WSJ (September 24, 2008), and Congress Approves Mental Health Bill, Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post (September 24, 2008). From court-o-rama's past, see Keeping Score (March 5, 2008), and a discussion of parity and preemption in Medically Necessary (February 29, 2008).

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on September 24, 2008 (boomark / email).