AI in Health Insurance: Ensuring Accountability and Oversight in an Evolving Landscape

One might say Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a double-edged sword. It has already proven helpful in streamlining and automating repetitive tasks in many areas of daily life. Yet, AI is also full of risks and dangers when not appropriately balanced with human supervision. In October 2023,...

NYSPA Report – Chronic Pain and Behavioral Health: Underlying Data and Regulatory Responses

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines chronic pain as pain lasting more than three months that can result from an underlying medical disease or condition, injury, medical treatment, inflammation, or unknown cause.1 Studies find a strong correlation between pain and mental...

Spotlight on Janian Medical Care

Janian Medical Care is a group practice of mental health clinicians and the largest provider of psychiatric care to homeless and formerly homeless people in New York City. Janian Medical Care partners with housing providers across the city and operates the Project for Psychiatric Outreach to the...

Remote Access to Mental Health Care and Treatment During the COVID-19 Crisis

New York State has unfortunately become an epicenter of the COVID-19 public health emergency, with more confirmed positive cases than any other State in the nation. During the COVID-19 crisis, the use of telehealth and telemedicine has become an essential tool in ensuring continued access to mental...

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...

The NYSPA Report – Outpatient Mental Health Clinic Reimbursement Reform

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has embarked upon a far-ranging project to reform outpatient mental health clinic programs and the Medicaid reimbursement methodology which supports them. A particular target of this reform process is the elimination of the COPs add-on. COPs (short...