{"content":[{"text":"Toward Equality for Texans with Mental Illness \n and Substance Use Disorders: A status report on \n implementing new federal parity protections","bbox":{"left":0.179412,"top":0.100917,"width":0.6408659999999999,"height":0.082561}},{"text":"By Mónica Villarreal","bbox":{"left":0.420196,"top":0.202424,"width":0.1595979999999999,"height":0.015151999999999999}},{"text":"Introduction","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.249735,"width":0.11436299999999999,"height":0.01772700000000002}},{"text":"All Texans deserve high-quality health care, whether it's for a physical ailment or a mental \n health or substance use issue.","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.283182,"width":0.716067,"height":0.03409099999999998}},{"text":"In health insurance, the term “parity” describes the equal treatment of mental health (MH) \n conditions and substance use disorders (SUD) in insurance plans, when compared to coverage \n for medical or surgical (M/S) health care. When a plan has parity it means that, for example, if \n an insurer provides unlimited doctor visits for a condition like diabetes, then the insurer should \n also provide unlimited doctor’s visits for mental health conditions like depression or \n schizophrenia. On December 2, 2017, Texas Medicaid was scheduled to come into compliance \n with new parity protections required under federal rules. HHSC has created a new web home \n for this area of policy, and in upcoming reports CPPP will review the newly-posted analyses. \n This brief explains the new protections and Texas’ process to implement them.","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.333636,"width":0.7575529999999999,"height":0.166819}},{"text":"The evolution of federal parity protections","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.532614,"width":0.38953299999999996,"height":0.01772700000000005}},{"text":"Parity protections are not new in Medicaid. Federal law on parity has been evolving since 1996 \n and was first applied to Medicaid Managed Care Organizationsi in 1998 (see Table 1). On March \n 29, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released final federal rules \n that extend parity protections to Medicaid MCOs, Medicaid Alternative Benefit Plans (ABPs) \n and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Medicaid ABPs are plans that states may \n choose to offer to meet the needs of specific populations, such as adults covered under \n Medicaid Expansion (Texas Medicaid does not currently offer any of these plans).","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.56606,"width":0.7610859999999999,"height":0.12878900000000004}},{"text":"The CMS rule on Medicaid and CHIP parity is designed to align as much as possible to rules \n issued to implement the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). The \n parity rule was designed to create consistency across the different insurance markets, including \n Medicaid and CHIP, employer-sponsored insurance, and the Health Insurance Marketplace. \n According to the CMS rule, states were to be in compliance by October 2, 2017, but Texas got a \n two-month extension (discussed below).","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.711212,"width":0.76021,"height":0.10984900000000009}},{"text":"7020 Easy Wind Drive, Suite 200 • Austin, TX • T 512.320.0222 • F 512.320.0227 • CPPP.org","bbox":{"left":0.117647,"top":0.939905,"width":0.608373,"height":0.015614000000000017}}],"images_bbox":[{"left":0.117647,"top":0.058788,"width":0.348039,"height":0.011818}],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[{"left":0.117647,"top":0.058788,"width":0.348039,"height":0.011818}]}