The Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 has resulted in some gains in employee mental health coverage, but inequities remain, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Since passage of the act, which requires employers to equalize dollar benefits for mental health and physical health coverage, the incidence of employees in plans that impose more restrictive dollar limits on inpatient mental health care coverage has decreased from 41% in 1997 to 7% in 2002.
However, employees in plans that contain tighter restrictions on the number of days of inpatient mental health care compared with inpatient medical and surgical care—a disparity allowed under the law—rose from 61% to 77% in the same period.
Differences in substance abuse coverage also remained, with only 8% of employees who had coverage for alcoholism treatment receiving the same coverage for that condition as for other conditions in 2002.