Mental Health

CMS Releases Updated Medicaid & CHIP Telehealth Toolkit, Includes State Best Practices and Behavioral Health Strategies

This month, CMS released an updated State Medicaid and CHIP Telehealth Toolkit consolidating information from previous toolkits and providing additional guidance – as required by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act – on issues from billing best practices to strategies for using telehealth in schools. In addition to FAQs on issues such as benefit flexibility, financing, […]

House Passes Bipartisan Medicaid and CHIP Behavioral Health Provisions, Senate Committees Act: Here’s a Breakdown

Last week, the House of Representatives passed its Support for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act. Passing on a broad bipartisan basis, the bill would reauthorize certain provisions of the 2018 SUPPORT Act such as those supporting individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) like requiring state Medicaid programs to provide coverage for medication-assisted treatment in addition […]

New Federal Rules Seek To Strengthen Mental Health Parity

By Maanasa Kona, Assistant Research Professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms On July 25, 2023, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury (the tri-agencies) proposed a new rule to strengthen the enforcement of the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) and ensure that patients can access mental health and substance […]

Administration Releases Medicaid and CHIP Mental Health and SUD Action Plan, Parity Initiatives

In another round of mental health-related announcements, this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a Medicaid and CHIP Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Action Plan alongside Administration announcements focused on mental health parity.  The seventeen page Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Action Plan provides an overview of Medicaid and […]