Category Medicare

In recent posts, guest editors, CFYM editors and our readers have shared their ideas about the status of access to quality mental health care in 2014. Will it be a year we look back on as a turning point in the fight for civil rights for people living with mood disorders?  Or will it will be a year that we give back some hard earned gains.

In recent posts, guest editors, CFYM editors and our readers have shared their ideas about the status of access to quality mental health care in 2014. Will it be a year we look back on as a turning point in the fight for civil rights for people living with mood disorders?  Or will it will be a year that we give back some hard earned gains.

There is much to be to keep our eye on in the coming year. During the winding days of Congress, before the holiday recess, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, H.R. 3717 was introduced. Many advocacy groups voiced their thoughts on this bill including Mental Health America,  National Alliance on Mental Illness, and the National Council for Behavioral Health, to name a few.

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Mary Grealy
Healthcare Leadership Council

Over the past few months, debate over our nation’s healthcare system has consumed much of the air here in Washington and around the country. The government shutdown over the President’s healthcare law, and the continuing missteps we are seeing with the implementation of the healthcare.gov website have catapulted the issue to the top of mind of many Americans. But regardless of the merits of the debate from either side, so much of the noise and rhetoric has been focused on what is wrong with our healthcare system that we often discard or overlook the elements and programs that are actually working.

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Annual enrollment for Medicare ends on December 7, 2013. There has been a lot written about the mental health parity final ruling and the ACA or Obamacare. It is important to note that these new regulations do not apply to Medicare. In order to maximize mental health care seniors, should look carefully at their supplemental policies.

To better help seniors navigate their options, we are reposting excerpts from several relevant posts from the Center for Medicare Advocacy, Inc. (CMA) and providing links to this valuable information.

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In Tuesday’s Expert Perspective, Mark Covall discussed Medicare’s 190-day limit for inpatient care for mental illness. Today, we offer a bit of background on this confounding—and life-threatening—limit.

Fear and Politics

Eliminating the 190-day lifetime limit on has been on the stove—albeit not the front burner—for more than two decades.

The limitation originated in the Social Security Act of 1965, when Medicare came into being. In 1965, people feared mental illness; they were biased against psychiatric hospitals and those who received care there. Combined with political strife over whether the states or the federal government should bear the costs of that care, this bias could explain the arbitrary and discriminatory limit.

Despite numerous changes in mental health care administration, medical practice, insurance, and—arguably most important—perceptions and understanding of mental health conditions, the 190-day lifetime limit persists.

And to get rid of it, there needs to be a change to federal law.

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In yesterday’s Expert Perspective, Mark Covall called Medicare’s 190-day lifetime limit on inpatient psychiatric hospital services “arbitrary and medically irresponsible.”

Today, we want to hear from you! To better understand how the 190-day limit affects you and those you love, we want to know:

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Vote in the poll and share your personal experiences in the comments below!

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Mark J. Covall
President and CEO, National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems

Medicare denies specialty inpatient care for mental illness but not any other medical condition.

Over the past few years, we’ve made great strides in eliminating barriers to mental health treatment. In 2008, Congress passed the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which requires private insurers to cover mental health and addiction treatment at the same level as other medical disorders.

However, lawful discrimination against mental illnesses still exists for seniors and disabled adults who receive benefits through Medicare.

That’s because Medicare beneficiaries have a lifetime limit of 190 days of inpatient psychiatric hospital care. There is no such lifetime limit for any other Medicare specialty inpatient hospital service.

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