Health Reform
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Public Law 111-148, includes many net positives for psychiatrists and their patients. Together with the 2008 mental health parity law, PPACA substantially expands the scope of comprehensive, nondiscriminatory mental health coverage that will be available to most Americans once both laws are fully implemented.
No law as wide-ranging and complex as PPACA can satisfy all of the myriad concerns of psychiatrists, other physicians, health professionals, and patients. While PPACA is not perfect, APA’s Board of Trustees concluded that it warranted APA’s support. Among other provisions of importance to the practice of psychiatry, the law:
- Extends coverage to 32 million more Americans;
- Bars insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions;
- Bars insurance companies from dropping coverage due to illness;
- Requires insurance companies to permit enrollees to renew coverage;
- Permits dependent children up to age 26 to be covered by their parents’ health insurance;
- Includes mental health and substance use disorder treatment as part of the basic package of benefits in health insurance sold in state-based insurance “exchanges” created by the law;
- Ultimately requires full parity for mental health and substance use disorder treatment in such insurance;
- Establishes new Centers of Excellence for Depression and Bipolar Disorder;
- Provides new research funding for postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis;
- Ensures that patients with diagnoses of mental illness will be included in “health homes”;
- Boosts funding for community mental health treatment options; and
- Facilitates co-location of primary and mental health treatment centers
The APA Department of Government Relations and the APA Office of Publishing Operations, including Psychiatric News, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and Psychiatric Services, have put together a booklet of information titled Health Care Reform: A Primer for Psychiatrists to help you better understand how the new law works and how it may affect you and your patients. A link to the primer is provided below. We hope you find this information helpful.
Health Care Reform: A Primer for Psychiatrists
As always we welcome your feedback.
For information on the development of health reform legislation in Congress and the Administration, please view the Resource documents provided below. Also available are Archive resources found at the upper left-hand corner of this page.