Mental Health Parity Rule Pushes Employers to Rethink Status Quo

A new federal rule will spur employer-sponsored health plans to take a broad look at how they provide mental health benefits compared to those for medical and surgical treatments to ensure they’re meeting strengthened requirements.

The rule (RIN: 1210-AC11) finalized Sept. 9 by the departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury aims to strengthen access to mental health care by requiring health plans to perform detailed comparisons between mental health and medical coverage.

It introduces several new parity tests under the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act for “non-quantitative treatment limitations,” such as “prior ...