Medicare tagged posts

Poll: Reaching the 190-Day Limit

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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Arbitrary and Medically Irresponsible: The 190-Day Limit

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.

stockvault-stop-sign103079Over 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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Locked Behind Door #2

stockvault-locked99163Provider-Related Challenges
In Tuesday’s Expert Perspective, Ron Manderscheid outlined three common kinds of challenges to accessing mental health care: insurance-related, provider-related, and distance-related challenges. Yesterday we heard from Jennifer, who experienced the first of these roadblocks, and tomorrow we’ll hear yet another story from someone who experienced these barriers first-hand.

Today’s story is from Doug. His provider-related challenges may sound familiar to you: he was denied access to quality care because a provider stopped seeing individuals on Medicare.

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