A report released by the HHS's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has found that privately-insured Americans still pay more out-of-pocket costs for mental healthcare and substance abuse recovery than they do for other medical services. Consumers paid for 31 percent of mental health services such as psychotherapy, behavioral counseling, medication management and other outpatient mental healthcare. But they only paid 21 percent out-of-pocket for other types of medical care. This is a considerable disparity considering that there's a law that requires equal coverage for both types of care. According to the AHRQ's Samuel H. Zuvekas, Ph.D. and Chad D. Meyerhoefer, Ph.D., the difference is probably due to less generous coverage for mental health treatments as well as restrictive insurance policies that force patients to seek out-of-network doctors.
For more on the mental health coverage disparity:
- check out this report