Advocates who have campaigned for enforcement of state behavioral health rules in Georgia are pushing for more reforms of the state system — including more work on parity.
This year’s bipartisan mental health law went into effect earlier this month and is still being implemented, and advocacy groups are calling for additional changes they say will help insurers not discriminate against Georgians with behavioral health needs.
An insurance company’s network adequacy — or the availability of on-network providers — is the “beating heart” of behavioral health parity, said Peter Nunn, board member of the Georgia section of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
And when it comes to behavioral health, Nunn said an insurer’s roster can appear more robust than it really is, arguing that there are “numerous phantom networks” in Georgia.
“We are not aiming for anything radical in our advocacy for the appropriateness of networks. We are simply looking for insurers that will provide the care they promised Georgians and for which insurers have received tens of billions of dollars in premiums every year,” Nunn said.
To illustrate the ongoing problem, Senator Sally Harrell said she was struggling to access a care for her own family in a timely manner. The Atlanta Democrat said she was told it would take two to three months for an appointment and another two to three weeks for follow-up appointments.
“That’s not mental health parity, waiting two to three months for a child who you think is in crisis,” Harrell said. “So what are you doing? You’re doing your best to keep this kid happy and healthy. But these problems don’t go away. These problems linger and come back later in worse shape.”
State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, a Decatur Democrat who co-sponsored this year’s bill, said she is monitoring the state insurance commissioner’s new consumer complaints process. Today, the state authority offers this complaints procedure on its website.
“The parent who doesn’t get an appointment for three months has to complain today,” Oliver said. “And that’s a message I want to pass on at every opportunity until the next bill.”
The advocacy groups held a press conference at the state Capitol on Monday to outline their updated “unified vision” for overhauling Georgia’s mental health and drug use treatment. The coalition has been influential in pushing through this year’s bill even as far-right activists sought to derail Republican House top priority David Ralston for the year.
The groups advocate providing funding for a marketing campaign that would educate consumers about their parity rights and the state’s grievance mechanism.
They are also pushing for an independent process that would allow Medicaid registrants to search online for and schedule appointments with a behavioral health practitioner on the network. Failure to identify a provider on the proposed website within the managed care organization’s time and distance requirements would trigger a notification first to the organization and later to the state if a resolution is not found.
Advocates are pushing for these improved parity measures as they work to rally support for new initiatives related to labor shortages, equity and early detection and prevention with a focus on children.
“Let’s keep kids out of jail. Let’s keep them off the streets. And let’s keep them in a safe place,” said Abdul Henderson, executive director of Mental Health America of Georgia. “That will be one of our main agenda items for this next session.”
Another group to keep an eye on during the legislative off-season is the reform-oriented Behavioral Health Commission, which continues to meet regularly and is expected to issue new recommendations ahead of next year’s meeting.
“It’s not just the year, it’s the decade of mental health reform, and we’re not done yet,” said Kevin Tanner, a former state official who chairs the commission, shortly after the end of the 2022 legislative session.
And at the signing of the mental health bill in April, Ralston said the measure was “not the end, just the end of the beginning”.
This story was provided by WABE content partner Georgia Recorder.
