Promote Behavioral Health Parity

Project Name:
Behavioral Health Parity

Team Leaders, Members and their Organizational Affiliations:

LEADERS

  • Brad Barron

MEMBERS

  • Dave Freedman
  • Christine Gebhard
  • Demarie Jones
  • Ginger Kadlec
  • Natalie Kasiborski
  • Jane Sundmacher
  • Andy Ulrich

September 2022 Behavioral Health Summit Materials

Insurance companies have a history of covering physical care more than mental care. Even today, despite the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies fail to cover physical and mental care equally. This lack of coverage for mental care restricts access to vital, and often lifesaving, resources.

Conducted a community scan and a literature review to evaluate the state of mental health parity in Michigan and how to impact it.

Found that Michigan insurance plans are not meeting the requirements for mental health parity that are legally required by a national law. Unfortunately, the only current method to impact the coverage of mental health plans is official consumer complaints. To share this information, and its possibility to affect healthcare coverage, with people in the region, we developed a Behavioral Health Parity Infographic explaining what parity is, how to recognize a lack of parity, and how to file a complaint to affect your coverage.

  • Distribute the Behavioral Health Parity Infographic far and wide
  • Develop a thorough toolkit explaining the mental health coverage of the health plans available in the region and how to impact them each individually.