Mental Health Parity is signed into law on December 20th, 2007.
Study Finds Part D Coverage of Mental Health Drugs Inadequate
The Medicare Rights Center has released a study, "Clearing Hurdles and Hitting Walls: Restrictions Undermine Part D Coverage of Mental Health Drugs," that examines access to antipsychotics and antidepressants for 15 New York Medicare prescription drug plans to which dual eligibles were assigned. The study looks specifically at prior authorization, step therapy and quantity limit requirements for medications. According to the study, not all plan formularies include single-source antipsychotics and antidepressants as required by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and 23% of plans either did not cover antidepressants or restricted access to the drugs through utilization management. In addition, the study finds that commonly prescribed and more expensive drugs had higher rates of utilization management. The study recommends that CMS review all formularies to ensure that "all or substantially all" medications are covered and review utilization management practices to ensure the practices do not restrict patients' access to needed drugs
FMI: The study is available online at http://www.medicarerights.org/maincontentpolicy_clearinghurdles.pdf.
