The journal of mental health policy and economics
-
J Ment Health Policy Econ · Oct 1998
Mental health and substance abuse parity: a case study of Ohio's state employee program.
In the United States, insurance benefits for treating alcohol, drug abuse and mental health (ADM) problems have been much more limited than medical care benefits. To change that situation, more than 30 states were considering legislation that requires equal benefits for ADM and medical care ("parity") in the past year. Uncertainty about the cost consequences of such proposed legislation remains a major stumbling block. There has been no information about the actual experience of implementing parity benefits under managed care or the effects on access to care and utilization. AIMS OF THE STUDY: Document the experience of the State of Ohio with adopting full parity for ADM care for its state employee program under managed care. Ohio provides an unusually long time series with seven years of managed behavioral health benefits, which allows us to study inflationary trends in a plan with unlimited ADM benefits. ⋯ In contrast to the emerging inflation anxiety regarding overall health care costs, managed care can provide long-run cost containment for ADM care even when patient copayments are reduced and coverage limits are lifted. This may differentiate ADM care from medical care and reasons for this difference include the state of management techniques (more advanced for ADM care), complexity of treatments (much higher technology utilization in medical care) and demographic factors (medical, but not behavioral health, costs increase as the population ages). IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICY: The experience of the state of Ohio demonstrates that parity level benefits for ADM care are affordable under managed care. It suggests that the concerns about costs that have stymied ADM policy proposals are unfounded, as long as one is willing to accept managed care. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH: The continuing decline in costs raises concerns that levels of care may become insufficient. While concerns about costs being too high dominate the policy hurdle for parity legislation at this moment, the next step in research is to address quality of care or health outcomes, areas about which even less is known than about costs.