Impossible to afford: Insurance hurdles to cover mental health
‘I always felt trapped’: Mother, daughter seek to expose how differently mental, physical illnesses are covered ‘I always felt trapped’: Mother, daughter seek to expose how differently mental, physical illnesses are covered ‘I always felt trapped’: Mother, daughter seek to expose how differently mental, physical illnesses are covered ‘I always felt trapped’: Mother, daughter seek to expose how differently mental, physical illnesses are covered Despite laws mandating mental health care be as available as physical care, some Maryland families are finding help either out of reach or too costly to afford. Getting the right care for mental health concerns can be a complicated process, and finding the right insurance to cover the cost is an additional struggle.
WBAL-TV 11 News Investigates shares a Maryland family’s experience. Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who is remembered for self-portraits, said she didn’t paint dreams or nightmares, but rather, her own reality.
The same can be said of 18-year-old Remy from Severn, whose brightly colored work depicts her darker reality of 10 hospitalizations since the age of 14 for major depression with psychotic features. “I always felt very trapped and watched,” Remy told WBAL-TV 11 News Investigates. These days, thankfully, Remy is stable, which is a relief to her mother, Joy Binion, who lost the gold standard of health insurance when she was laid off from her job as a federal health care worker.
A secondary plan through Remy’s father just doesn’t cut it, and another hospitalization could be daunting. “It could financially break us. We would have to go through savings.
It would be extremely stressful,” Binion told WBAL-TV 11 News Investigates. Remy said her family is not alone: “I know a lot of people who are out there keeping their issues to themselves, probably because they know it would send them or their family back financially.”
The mother and daughter try to raise awareness — not just about mental illness, but the failings of insurance.
Report
: Marylanders more likely to leave network for behavioral health care According to arecent report by RTI International, Maryland residents were nearly 21 times more likely to go out of network for inpatient behavioral health treatment compared to medical or surgical treatment, a rate that is more than three times the national average. “I saw how differently mental illness is treated versus a physical illness,” Binion said. Dan Martin, the senior director of public policy at theMental Health Association of Maryland, told WBAL-TV 11 News Investigate that the problem is insurance reimbursements. “Mental health care can be unaffordable, even if you have insurance,” Martin said. “The insurance companies are not paying mental health and substance use providers enough to entice them to join their networks.” “Mental health care can be unaffordable, even if you have insurance.” That has delayed so-called parity, which a 2008 federal law mandated so that mental health services would be as accessible as those of physical health care. “We’re in the midst of doing a number of investigations on mental health parity and coverage in an effort to make sure our health insurers are following the law,” Maryland Insurance Commissioner Marie Grant told WBAL-TV 11 News Investigates. “These are services that families desperately need.” For now, Binion is trying to help others who are walking this journey by volunteering with theNational Alliance on Mental Illness.
Both she and Remy are featured in NAMI Maryland’s powerful podcast, “You, me and my mental illness.” “Mental illness is just that, an illness. It’s not a moral failure or a character flaw, which, a lot of times, it’s treated as,” Binion told WBAL-TV 11 News Investigates.
Remy, who said she is not fully recovered, continues to find purpose through her art, canvases that are not dreams or nightmares, but Remy’s own reality. The phone number for theNational Maternal Mental Health Hot Lineis 833-9-HELP4MOMS.
You can call or text that number 24/7. It is free and confidential.
Maryland Peace of Mind: Meeting the NeedWBAL-TV 11 MOBILE:
Get our app & email newsletters, follow us on social media
Source: https://www.wbaltv.com/article/insurance-coverage-differs-when-treating-mental-illness/69265778