Americans need accessible, quality mental health care.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, many Americans have felt an impact on their mental health. There are many factors that can exacerbate mental health challenges: some include isolation, financial concerns, and managing childcare. In today’s world, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
While more of us than ever are facing challenges, there is good news. The stigma surrounding mental health treatment is fading away. In the past year, a record number of Americans sought treatment for mental illnesses, like anxiety and depression.
It is encouraging that more Americans are willing to asking for help. However, as a result, access to care is more important now than ever before. Receiving adequate care is often more complicated for the vulnerable in our society. For example, Medicaid beneficiaries are among the highest risk populations for mental health concerns and problems with substance abuse
In fact, Medicaid still relies on a fifty-year-old framework, when “hysteria” was considered a diagnosable mental illness.
Medicare’s guidelines for mental health care places caps on the number of beds provided for patients, and the number of days a patient can receive care. In some instances, Medicaid will only provide coverage for 15 days of treatment.
Fifty years ago, when mental health care relied heavily on institutionalization, this restriction made sense. But the way the medical community and society treats mental illness has changed enormously since then. You can read more about why the exclusion exists and how it is harming those suffering from mental illness in this editorial from the Wall Street Journal.
The IMD exclusion’s 15-day cap on treatment is particularly insidious when considering that patients are uniquely vulnerable to suicide after being discharged from treatment. In fact, patients newly out of treatment are 15 times more likely than other populations to commit suicide.It is imperative that we end the IMD exclusion, and ensure proper care for those in need.
I am proud to announce the re-introduction of my Expanding Access to Inpatient Mental Health Act, which would permanently repeal the IMD exclusion, removing arbitrary barriers to care.
You can read the bill in its entirety here.
Specifically, the Expanding Access to Inpatient Mental Health Act would eliminate the 15-day cap for Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and Prepaid Inpatient Health Plan (PIHP) beneficiaries receiving care in an IMD.
This would allow individuals to receive care for the appropriate amount of time required to treat their mental illness.
This legislation will expand on my previous work advocating for increased mental health care in rural communities and trauma prevention. You can read more about that work in my 2020 op-ed in the Star Tribune, “Mental Illness is an American Crisis.”