About 25% of health plans in two state-run public exchanges were found to violate the federal mental health parity law, according to research by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health that was published in the journal Psychiatric Services.
At issue were significant cost differences for medical-surgical and behavioral health benefits, as well as tougher prior-authorizations requirements for the latter category. The researchers suggested a need for better regulation and more monitoring of potential discrepancies in benefits.
