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• Posted August 13, 2024

Tougher State Insurance Laws Get Kids Needed Mental Health Care

Kids more often get the psychiatric care they need if they live in states that mandate insurance coverage for child mental health care, a new study confirms.

Parents and caregivers were 20% less likely to say they'd had trouble getting mental health services for a child if they lived in states with comprehensive laws around mental and behavioral health insurance coverage, reported a team from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Going without needed mental health services can lead to tragedy, study lead author Dr. Ashley Foster said.

“Unfortunately, in my own practice, I regularly see children who are unable to access needed mental health care, and their symptoms continue to worsen until they reach a crisis point,” said Foster, a pediatric emergency care physician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

The need is real: A poll released last month by the  U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that nearly a third of American adolescents and teens received some sort of mental health treatment in 2023.

SAMHSA noted that rates of adolescents getting mental health treatment has increased virtually every year since 2009.

In the new study, Foster's team surveyed 30,000 child caregivers nationwide.

They found that about 1 in 8 said they'd had trouble accessing mental or behavioral health service for their child between 2016 and 2019. The effect was more common among the caregivers of Black and Asian kids, and among those caring for children with especially troubled childhoods.

And it's not enough for a state to enact laws around child mental health care coverage: It has to be enforced. Loopholes or roadblocks abound, Foster said.

“Even when families have insurance, mental and behavioral health providers may refuse to accept certain insurance types -- or insurance altogether,” she explained in a UCSF new release. “For those who do access care, there may be high co-pays or deductibles, which can affect perceptions of access.” 

What can be done?

Rates of access can improve when states clearly define those conditions that must be covered by insurance, for example, autism and attention- deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

There should also be a focus on community-based mental health services; a workforce that reflects the diversity of a state's population; and financial support put toward telehealth services, the researchers added.

The findings were published Aug. 12 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

More information

Find out more about the treatment of ADHD at the Cleveland Clinic.

SOURCE: University of California, San Francisco, news release, Aug. 12, 2024