Biden Administration Releases ‘Historic’ Final Rule on Behavioral Health-Physical Health Parity

The Biden administration has released its final rule updating mental health parity compliance for group and individual health plans. Released Monday, the final rule updates how federal agencies oversee whether health plans treat behavioral health benefits differently than physical health benefits. In short, it requires and spells out how health plans are to analyze nonquantitative […]

Newly Released Proposed Federal Mental Health Rule Seeks To ‘Make Parity A Reality’

The Biden Administration introduced a new proposed rule focused on strengthening mental health parity regulations. Specifically, the proposal sets out to clarify health plan’s requirements for nonquantitative treatment limitations (NQTL) comparative analyses and network composition. NQTL are health plan practices that are not associated with specific numbers but still have an influence on whether and […]

Upcoming Mental Health Parity Rule Could Impact How Payers Demonstrate Compliance to Feds

The Biden Administration is preparing to release proposed rules that impact how payers demonstrate mental health parity to federal regulators. The move marks another step toward resolving the disparity between how payers treat behavioral health and physical health benefits by bringing them in line with recently enacted reporting mandates. Yet little is known about the […]

DOL Rule Could Complicate How Behavioral Health Providers Use Contractors

The Biden administration could mix up how behavioral health operators address worker classification. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) said in October it would undo Trump-era classification rules that made it easier to classify workers as contractors. This bolstered the gig economy and placed an emphasis on how much control the employer had over the […]