A Flurry of Parity Activity: An Update on Recent Legislation, Litigation, and Enforcement
AHLA thanks the leaders of the Behavioral Health Practice Group for contributing this feature article.
- September 01, 2021
- Kelly J. Epperson , Rosecrance
- Kylynn Mowell , Rosecrance
“Parity” has generally been recognized as fairness in the way benefits for behavioral health care are administered as compared to medical and surgical benefits. As one court explained, parity requires health plans to “treat sicknesses of the mind in the same way that they would a broken bone.”1 The U.S. Congress passed the first federal parity law in 1996 titled the Mental Health Parity Act (MHPA). MHPA prohibited health plans from imposing less favorable annual or lifetime dollar limits on mental health benefits than any such limits imposed on medical and surgical benefits.2 Since MHPA passed in 1996, there has been a near constant stream of legislation, litigation, and enforcement at both the state and federal level. Because MHPA was limited to federally regulated plans, many states passed their own laws that applied to state-regulated plans and that imposed more stringent parity standards. Health care attorneys can expect this pace of activity to continue as the demand for behavioral health care increases and as the standards of parity are clarified and refined. This article examines recent legal developments and parity trends and provides an outlook on the future of parity.
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