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Aug 2008
Congress Passes Medicare Mental Health Parity
In July, in an historical move, Congress enacted mental health parity in Medicare, to be phased in beginning in 2010. The law provides Medicare mental health equity, by phasing in, over six years, a reduction in the 50 percent mental health copayment requirement to the 20 percent required for all other outpatient services.
Cost sharing for outpatient mental health services will be phased down from 50 percent to 20 percent by 2014. Cost sharing will be 45 percent in 2010 and 2011, 40 percent in 2012, 35 percent in 2013, and 20 percent in 2014 and thereafter.
On Tuesday, July 15, the House and Senate overrode the President's veto of H.R. 6331, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, providing the two-thirds vote necessary by votes of 383-41 and 70-26, respectively. The new law also reverses the 10.6 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements for physicians that took effect on July 1.
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