Civil Liberties, Mental Health Care and Public Policy

mental health billing

Reporter Pete Earley felt that he was standing “on the outside looking in” when he interviewed people for his articles and books about crime. But when his son, Mike, became psychotic, Pete found himself on the inside looking out. Mike Earley suffered his first psychotic breakdown during his last year at college in Brooklyn. Over time he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder, each diagnosis bringing in its wake different drugs and different therapies. What a difference, Mike’s dad notes, between the precise medical diagnosis and treatment of, say, a broken leg and the impressionistic, trial-and-error labeling and treatment of mental illness.

Mike and his family found it tough to access mental health care. Pete told lies to get treatment for his son, but even after admission into the hospital, Mike could not be medicated against his will. Mike’s charges in connection with the break-in threatened to ruin his life, but he was lucky, and a felony was averted. In time he accepted medication, stabilized, and found work. By the book’s end Mike has reentered the community as a productive young adult albeit one dependent on psychotropic medication. Still, as Pete makes plain, many mentally ill Americans who run afoul of the legal system fare considerably worse.

For his portrait of disturbed prisoners, Pete Earley went to Miami, Florida, providing the historical background-the efforts of reformer Dorothea Dix, the emergence of psychopharmacology in the 1950s, and the movement to eliminate state mental hospitals in favor of community mental health centers starting in the early 1960s-for what he found there.

With deinstitutionalization, Earley reminds us, hundreds of thousands of troubled people poured onto the streets, where few resources awaited them. The community mental health centers were simply not equipped to treat the severely and chronically mentally ill. Over time, as their bizarre behaviors brought them into conflict with mainstream society, these disturbed people shifted, not back into treatment facilities, but into prisons and jails.

Some people, arrested for a minor crime, were held for a few days and released only to be arrested again and placed in jail. Even today some prisoners spend years in this endless loop without ever getting appropriate medical care.

Where can a concerned parent access the treatment needed to restore a child’s reason and thereby keep him, and society, safe? Whichever way we turn, we face fundamental questions about our national values. What basic rights should a citizen have? Crazy is a worthy contribution to the ongoing debate.

Mental Health Insurance and Parity

Mental Health Insurance will soon be treated the same as medical and surgical benefits. Addiction Treatment benefits will have the same rate of return as those as a surgical procedure. When the congressional economic recovery package was signed on October 3rd the Mental Health and Addiction Parity Act was a rider on that package.

This Act will lead to wholesale changes in the way insurance benefits are written for those suffering with mental health problems and addiction problems. Some policies allow only detox with no reimbursement for any continuing care or after care.

Families faced with the financial cost for addiction treatment often felt betrayed by the provider when the coverage just wasn’t there. The Mental Health and Addiction Parity Act will impact over 100 million people enrolled in state regulated or employer-funded plans. The bill will go into effect in January 1, 2010. This is not a free pass for drug rehab centers and eating disorder treatment programs to bill providers outrageously. Benefits will continue to be managed and medical necessity will still have to be proven. What this bill does accomplish is group health plans will be required to raise the cap to match the medical surgical plans giving the coverage necessary for addicts, alcoholics and those with mental health problems to receive the help they deserve.

Source : Mental Health Billing & Mental Health Billing Software

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