Patrick Kennedy Speaks at Mental Health Liaison Group

Patrick Kennedy was a key supporter of the FREED Act. In fact, he was the first champion of FREED introducing it for the first time in 2009. Patrick Kennedy stepped down from Congress in 2011, but he remains a supporter of the EDC’s work and a champion for mental health policy.

Recently, Patrick Kennedy delivered a speech to the Mental Health Liaison Group, a group which the EDC is a member. He urged further collaboration within the mental health community, and emphasized the need for additional policies.

We agree with the sentiment of his final sentences “We have made great strides in passing the parity law and seeing it integrated into the Affordable Care Act, and many of you deserve credit for these truly significant steps. … More important, we are working to ensure that people with these conditions receive the care they need when and where they need it and that they are not punished because it is their brain that is affected. That’s why I continue to see the fight for parity – the quest for a culture of parity – as the civil rights struggle of today, and that’s why I’m so proud to be working with all of you to achieve our common goals.”

Thank you, Patrick Kennedy for joining the EDC in this fight. As we continue to fight for people with eating disorders. We too, are working for a world, where eating disorders are treated at parity, everyone receives the treatment they need, physicians are well-trained  to recognize early eating disorders, and prevention programs abound in schools. We are working to influence federal policy so that these hopes become reality.

For the full text of his speech click here.  

Mental Health Parity Matters

We thank Kantor and Kantor for their blog and want to draw additional attention to the New York settlement with Cigna.

 

Last week, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced that the state of New York had settled with Cigna, a major insurance company. The settlement, resulted from a probe into New York health insurance companies’ compliance with mental health parity laws. The probe discovered that Cigna has denied more than 300 sessions of nutritional counseling to about 50 members with mental health conditions, mostly eating disorders, since 2010. Cigna’s denials were on the grounds that the members exceeded the three-visit limit. Because Cigna, did not limit nutritional counseling visits for members with physical diseases, the State determined they were in violation with existing New York parity law.

 

“State law clearly requires health insurance companies to provide mental health benefits on par with other medical benefits. There is no gray area here,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “Today’s settlement puts insurance companies on notice: My office will aggressively enforce mental health parity laws and fight to give patients the benefits they are legally entitled to – and which they pay for.” (click here for the full announcement)

 

The EDC applauds Attorney General Schneiderman for his aggressive approach to protecting the consumer and requiring insurance companies to follow state and federal parity laws.  May this set a precedent, for similar actions at the national level, now that Federal Parity is in effect and the regulations have been clarified. (click here for our more on the federal parity regulations). Eating disorders must be treated at parity with physical conditions. We are hopeful we will see more of these actions taken across the country.

 

For specifics on the case and why parity matters, please click here to visit the blog of one of our members Kantor & Kantor  here for more details: http://www.kantorlaw.net/Eating_Disorder_Blog/2014/January/Parity_Prevails_After_Cigna_Wrongfully_Denies_Me.aspx

EDC Spring Lobby Day is April 3!

 

The EDC is excited to announce our spring lobby day will be April 3! Mark the date on your calendar and start planning your travel for this exciting day. As usual, we’ll have a welcome reception on the evening before, April 2.

 

If you’ve never been to an EDC lobby day, please consider coming. It is an amazing opportunity to tell Members of Congress and their staff your story.  When you share how you have been touched by eating disorders it can be an incredibly empowering experience. You will make a difference. You will be able to influence eating disorders policy at the highest levels of our government. It’s also a wonderful opportunity to meet others who have walked this road, who share the burden of and triumph over eating disorders, and who are continuing to fight for better federal laws around eating disorders.

 

If you’ve been before, then come again. You know that successful lobbying takes persistence. We come. We come again. We come in larger and larger numbers to make our voice heard.  Reunite with old friends and colleagues, and meet new ones. Encourage those attending for the first time, and be encouraged by using your voice to empower yourself and others to make a difference.

 

Come to lobby day and make a difference!

Happy New Year!

 

As we wrap up 2013, we want to reflect on some of the highlights for us throughout the year. 2013  was a very successful year for the EDC, and we are particularly proud of these key accomplishments:

• The EDC urged Senators and Members of Congress to send Senate and House letters to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging parity for eating disorders. We are thrilled that HHS clarified the regulations in their final rule in a way that should increase access to care for people with eating disorders (such as clarifying equity in coverage for residential treatment).
• A new Request for Applications (RFA) was released in March as a result of EDC’s success in securing report language in the FY2013 Health and Human Services Appropriations bill.
• The EDC conducted a comprehensive survey of the Benchmark plans to be offered through the State Exchanges, and how eating disorders would be covered in each of the 50 states.
• We worked with House Champions to get the FREED Act introduced with 15 original cosponsors.
• We hosted two successful Lobby Days, including our most widely attended lobby day in EDC history. Both lobby days were supported with a virtual lobby day, and the advocacy events were live tweeted.
• We launched a state leader initiative to assist in the implementation of the state exchanges and improve our grassroots campaigns.
• We regularly meet with House and Senate staff on a variety of legislative priorities and advocate for the advance of federal eating disorders policy including:  FREED and the Mental Illness Awareness and   Prevention Act (S.689).
• We participated in a variety of coalition efforts including: supported Binge Eating Disorder Awareness Week with a comprehensive social media strategy, and participated in the efforts led by  BEDA and BingeBehavior.com to positively influence Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign
• We continued our goal of meeting with all 535 Congressional offices each year.

We hope 2013 has been a great year for you! We are looking forward to 2014, and are optimistic that the EDC will be able to accomplish even more in the coming year. Thank you for all of your support this past year.

 

Murphy Introduces House Mental Health Bill

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), a former practicing psychologist and Chairman of Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, has introduced a major mental health bill, aimed at substantial reforms based on the results of an investigation done by his committee earlier this year.

Rep. Murphy’s bill, “The Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act” attempts to overhaul significant portions of the mental health system, by focusing programs and resources on psychiatric care for patients and their families. Support from the mental health community on this bill is split, we’ll go over some of the significant pieces of this bill and point of some of the points of support and controversy.

Rep. Murphy’s bill would create an Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would raise visibility of eating disorders, and streamline how mental health issues are dealt with at HHS. While some groups see this as an opportunity to raise the profile of mental health disorders at HHS and streamline oversight, others are concerned that it would dismantle and override SAMHSA and turn back some of the work SAMHSA has done on this issue.

Some of the more controversial provisions include: altering the Health Information and Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules and mandatory inpatient treatment. The HIPAA alterations would allow parents and caregivers to access information about their loved ones. Some groups, argue that the restriction of information to parents and caregivers have hindered parents’ ability to get treatment for their children, while privacy advocates, find the distribution of medical information without consent egregious. The most controversial provisions includes the establishment of a grant program to expand involuntary outpatient commitment, under which someone with a serious mental illness is court-mandated to follow a specific treatment plan, usually requiring medication.

We will continue to monitor this bill as it progresses.

A more detailed summary of the major points of the bill includes*:

 

• Creates an Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders within the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate federal government programs and ensure that recipients of the community mental health services block grant apply evidence-based models of care developed by the National Institute of Mental Health.
• Alters the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy rules and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act so physicians and mental health professionals may provide information to parents and caregivers about a loved one who is in an acute mental health crisis to protect their health, safety, and well-being.
• Increases access to acute care psychiatric beds for the most critical patients.
• Court-ordered ‘Assisted Outpatient Treatment,’
• Tele-psychiatry to link pediatricians and primary care physicians with psychiatrists and psychologists in areas where patients do not have access to mental health professionals.
• Protects certain classes of drugs commonly used to treat mental illness so physicians have prescribe the right medication for those on Medicare and Medicaid similar to the protected classes for persons with epilepsy and cancer.
• Authorizes the BRAIN research initiative at the National Institute of Mental Health and encourages the agency to undertake additional research projects on serious mental illness and self- or other-directed violence.
• Applies the standards for a new class of Federally Qualified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (FQCBHC), requiring them to provide a range of mental health and primary care services.
• Reauthorizes mental health courts and requires the Department of Justice to collect more data on interactions between the police and the mentally ill. The bill also authorizes Byrne Justice Assistance Grants (JAG) to be used for mental health training of law enforcement and corrections officers
• The Department of Education, working with mental health stakeholders, will undertake a national campaign aimed at reducing the stigma of severe mental illness in schools. The bill also reauthorizes the Garrett Lee Smith suicide prevention program.
• Extends the health information technology incentive program to mental health providers so they can communicate and work with primary care clinicians.
• Eliminates federal legal barriers under the Federal Tort Claims Act preventing physician volunteerism at community mental health clinics and federally-qualified health centers.
• Emphasizes evidence-based treatments, sunsets unauthorized programs, and strengthens congressional oversight of all federal behavioral health grants.

* Taken from the full summary of the investigation and results available at: http://murphy.house.gov/uploads/summary.pdf

5 Reasons the EDC is Thankful this Year

The EDC has so many reasons to be thankful. We’ve achieved so many wonderful things this year. We hope you spend today celebrating your thankfulness for the good things in your life. We’ve decided to share our top five reasons we’re thankful this Thanksgiving, and we hope they’ll encourage you as well.  

1. We held our most widely attended lobby day in April, and another incredibly successful lobby day in September. (click to read more)

2. The FREED Act was introduced in May. (click to read more)

3. Favorable Parity Regulations issued in November. (click here to read more)

4. Our Members! The EDC Coalition Members are the most committed, supportive leaders in the eating disorders community.

5. You!  Thank you for supporting our legislative strategy, joining us on lobby day, sharing your stories and contacting your members of Congress.

More on Parity

One of our board members, Katherine Swain McClayton, Manager of Aftercare Planning at the Oliver-Pyatt Centers  has written an excellent blog on the Parity Rules.

Check out her blog here: http://oliverpyattcentersblog.com/parity-rules-determined-significant-on-many-levels/