Enforcing Mental Health Parity Laws for Suicidal Teens: A Necessity

A teenager with life-threatening depression found hope in a residential care facility that offered Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) in Wisconsin. However, the family's health insurance, Medical Mutual of Ohio, declined to cover any further treatment just as the teenager was starting to feel better. The denial of health insurance coverage for mental health treatment continues to be extremely common, despite federal and state parity laws that are supposed to ensure fairness. The family had to pay $40,000 out-of-pocket to keep their daughter in the program. After nine months of red tape, an independent organization overturned the insurance company's denial of coverage for the teenager's treatment at Rogers Behavioral Health.