Have you ever asked the Department of Labor a question? If you have, I hope your experience was better than my recent one. The response I received – and the fact that I had to ask the question in the first place – is very telling of the current lack of guidance the self-funded industry is up against in the context of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.
The MHPAEA, in general
Let's back up a minute. The MHPAEA is designed to hold insurance companies and health plans to certain standards relative to their coverage of mental health and substance use disorder benefits. Like any other consumer protection law, though, someone else has to lose certain rights when a consumer gains rights, since sometimes rights are a limited commodity.
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