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Mental Health Parity in New York – How It Started, How It’s Going
Picnics and Pizza The fight for mental health parity - equal coverage and reimbursement by health insurers of mental illnesses and conditions - has been long and challenging. In the 1990s, the National Picnic for Parity became a grassroots movement in support of parity. The group hosted spirited...
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Mental Health Advocacy With and Without Advanced Technology
I just switched from E-mail to Microsoft Word to write this article about mental health and technology. I left 250 E-mails unanswered to make the move. Oy vey! I feel like I’m guilty of E-mail neglect. Who will I offend today by not responding to them? It wasn’t always like this. 45...
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Behavioral Health Care: How Far We’ve Come in 15 Years
Fifteen years goes by in the blink of an eye. This summer I’m stepping down after 15 years as president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, which is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary. This is a good time to take stock of where we have been as a field and where we are...
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Mental Health Parity and Its Impact on the Behavioral Health Workforce
In 2006, New York enacted a parity mandate in the form of Timothy’s Law, which requires group health plans to provide 30 inpatient days and 20 outpatient days for most mental health diagnoses and requires large plans to provide full coverage for certain biologically based illnesses. Several years...
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New Mental Health Parity Laws in New York State
About one in five New Yorkers require behavioral health services, but many do not receive treatment because of a lack of access to insurance coverage. More than 10 years ago, the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act required large group health plans that provide mental health...
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NYAPRS Regional Forum Held at CoveCare Center
Individuals served by and representatives from agencies in Putnam, Westchester and surrounding counties participated in a special forum hosted by CoveCare Center in Carmel, NY. “The Power of Grassroots Advocacy” and “The Promise of Pioneering Service Innovations” were the main topics...
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Helping, Engaging, and Linking to Health Interventions (HEALTHi)
The Staten Island Performing Provider System (SI PPS) is partnering with Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC) on an exciting new project – HEALTHi (Helping, Engaging, and Linking to Health interventions). The program will focus on providing a safety net of resources to individuals with complex...
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A Human Right Still Unmet: Medical Treatment of Mentally Ill Prisoners
Individuals with mental illness have the right to receive appropriate medical treatment in correctional settings and upon release. It sounds perfectly reasonable, but unfortunately, is far from reality. That was the consensus of a distinguished panel of mental health and legal experts who recently...
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Project Access: An Investigation of Access to Quality Mental Health and Addictions Care
Did you know that health insurers are mandated by government to offer panels of providers so that families can find easily accessible care for their loved ones—and not only for physical illnesses? This requirement is known as network adequacy, referring to adequate networks of care. However,...
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Fight Against Threats to Behavioral Heath Funding
The Trump presidency and Republican control of the Congress may do great damage to the already inadequate American mental health system by repealing the Affordable Care Act, eliminating Medicaid as an entitlement, privatizing Medicare, and limiting the authority of the states to regulate health...
