New law expands insurance policies for mental health

Jennifer Byrd of the AP writes:
Private health-insurance policies for individuals and small companies in Washington now will be required to offer coverage for mental-health treatment equal to their medical benefits.

"Washington now has the strongest and the best mental-health parity requirements in our nation," Gov. Chris Gregoire said as she signed the bill into law Friday.

The measure expands a mental-health parity law passed in 2005 that required all private health-insurance policies for large groups to provide equal coverage for medical and mental-health treatment. Under the new measure, that requirement expands to companies with fewer than 50 employees and to individual policies.

It means, for example, that if a health plan allows unlimited doctor visits for colds and sprains, there can't be a cap on therapy sessions.

With this law and the 2005 measure, mental-health parity now covers about 2 million of the state's 6 million people, said Randy Revelle, senior vice president of the Washington State Hospital Association.

The remaining 4 million are covered by federal programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, work at self-insured companies or have no insurance.

Some of those self-insured companies, such as Swedish Medical Center, Ben Bridge Jewelers, American Airlines, AT&T and General Motors, do voluntarily offer mental-health parity to employees, Revelle said.

But only a federal law would require them to do so.