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Mental Health Parity: A step towards value-based care

by Lifecycle Health Make an Impact on Healthcare Providers & Patient D

Bipolar disorder is a tough disease to battle and the magnitude of its challenges are felt by none other than the patient. For someone who is diagnosed with bipolar disorder or any mental illness especially at a young age, life becomes an unending struggle because, if treatment isn’t started immediately it’s tough to achieve financial independence. Some patients experience symptoms that prevent them from having a job or a stable income. When we talk about a value-based healthcare system it becomes imperative that we consider mental healthcare too. Along with this inclusion, patient engagement should be made simpler and patient-provider communication seamless.

We need to ensure that mental illness patients are covered under insurance because for some the symptoms are so harrowing to the extent that having a regular career or income becomes tough. Counselling and psychotherapy cover a major part of the treatment for mental illness patients apart from prescription medication. How can mental illness patients cope with the high expenses of their treatment?

You will be surprised to know that 5.7 million American adults are suffering from bipolar disorder as reported by The National Institute of Mental Health. And 60% of bipolar disorder patients get into substance abuse disorder as mentioned by National Alliance of Mental Illness. Approximately 44.7 million adults suffered from mental illness in 2016.

So, with this constant challenge can mental illness patients rely on insurance to cover their expenses?

Can we move towards value-based care for mental illness patients?

Yes, it is possible with Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), a law passed in 2008, further enacted in 2010. This Parity Law makes it necessary for health insurance carriers to consider mental illness with the same terms and conditions as medical and surgical services. Insurance companies need to provide equal limits on the days visited while treating mental illness as a physical illness. This law also doesn’t allow insurance companies to deny coverage to bipolar disorder patients as a pre-existing condition.

Further support to mental illness patients in the form of value-based care came with The Affordable Care Act (ACA). It covered essential health benefits to 20 million state Medicaid and Medicaid managed care plans. Medicaid is known to help limited income people by covering their medical costs. This act makes it mandatory for health insurance companies to cover people irrespective of the pre-existing condition, which may be physical or psychological. The Essential Health benefits require all health plans to cover mental health and substance use disorder services.

Amongst the efforts towards making healthcare accessible to everyone Lifecycle Health facilitates an affordable value-based healthcare system. Lifecycle Health is a cloud-based patient management web and mobile application that assimilates entire patient information and treatment history. Patient-provider communication improves, which is vital in the case of mental illness patients where counselors can provide better treatment as the patients feed in all health updates. The patient can communicate with his/her doctor immediately in case of emergency and the doctor can go through the reports and symptoms to give timely advise. Lifecycle Health is a collaborative platform and a patient engagement software, which is a step ahead towards better mental healthcare treatment and achieving mental health parity goals.

References:

https://www.foundationsrecoverynetwork.com/bipolar-diagnosis-affect-insurance-coverage/

http://www.addictionhelpcenter.com/bipolar-diagnosis-affect-insurance/


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About Lifecycle Health Freshman   Make an Impact on Healthcare Providers & Patient D

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Created on Feb 19th 2018 03:48. Viewed 707 times.

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