Partnership Research

Partnership Research


Data and reporting are essential to ensure parity compliance. Produced in collaboration with the Legal Action Center, this report examines requirements for state-regulated private health plans to submit necessary data, and requirements for State Insurance Departments to report on their enforcement activities.

Background

In order to enforce the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, regulators must have information that explains health plan features that may limit care.

This information is typically not available to regulators because it is in the sole possession of health plans opposed to disclosure. Traditional regulatory enforcement activities — such as form review, post-market investigations and market conduct examinations, and consumer complaints — have proven inadequate to capture this information or prevent the sale of sub-standard plans.

Key findings

Recommendations

States should adopt laws requiring health plans to submit compliance reports and quantitative data on an annual basis and ensure that parity violations are resolved prior to sale of the plans. In addition, states should require their Insurance Departments to report annually on parity enforcement activities.