The regulations will force health insurance plans to collect and report more data on how they limit and deny mental health claims. ProPublica’s reporting has found that insurers regularly shortchange patients seeking treatment.
It’s crazy to me that insurers resist paying for mental healthcare so hard. Mental health care is dirt cheap compared to physical health care. A night at an inpatient hospital and pro-fees cost a private insurer a very low four-digit sum, depending on the contracted rate. I think the highest reimbursement rate I ever saw was about $1K per diem. A night in the ICU plus all the fees and meds can easily rocket to 5, maybe 6 figures.
Even more perplexing is that getting your mental health taken care of often positively impacts physical health and self-care, reducing insurance costs over time. I guess over time is the problem, because no one cares about saving money in the future, just right now.
You also forget that much of the current cost of health care is because of insurance, so segments where insurance refuses to operate like mental health care would be largely insulated from that inflation. It’ll be prohibitively expensive even with insurance in short order once it’s required to be covered.
It’s crazy to me that insurers resist paying for mental healthcare so hard. Mental health care is dirt cheap compared to physical health care. A night at an inpatient hospital and pro-fees cost a private insurer a very low four-digit sum, depending on the contracted rate. I think the highest reimbursement rate I ever saw was about $1K per diem. A night in the ICU plus all the fees and meds can easily rocket to 5, maybe 6 figures.
Even more perplexing is that getting your mental health taken care of often positively impacts physical health and self-care, reducing insurance costs over time. I guess over time is the problem, because no one cares about saving money in the future, just right now.
You also forget that much of the current cost of health care is because of insurance, so segments where insurance refuses to operate like mental health care would be largely insulated from that inflation. It’ll be prohibitively expensive even with insurance in short order once it’s required to be covered.