In this issue of our Foundation Friday series, we’re catching up with one foundation that’s been making headlines. When we last sat down with our client, The Bowman Family Foundation, we were left inspired by the work they’re doing to support mental health. Since then, they have shown no signs of slowing down their efforts in this important area. The Mental Health Treatment and Research Institute, a tax-exempt subsidiary of The Bowman Family Foundation has commissioned and designed a new report, Behavioral Health Parity – Pervasive Disparities in Access to In-Network Care Continue. This new study by health economists at nonprofit research institute RTI International adds to recent research demonstrating a lack of access to affordable mental health and substance use disorder treatment in the U.S.
The study’s findings showed that patients went out-of-network:
- 3.5 times more often to see a behavioral health clinician than a medical/surgical clinician
- 8.9 times more often to see a psychiatrist
- 10.6 times more often to see a psychologist
- 6.2 times more often for acute behavioral inpatient care
- 19.9 times more often for sub-acute behavioral inpatient care
The study also revealed that in-network office visit reimbursement, a key lever that health plans use to encourage provider in-network participation, was 22% higher on average for medical/surgical clinicians than office visits with behavioral clinicians.
“RTI concluded that high out-of-network use for mental health and substance use treatment cannot be explained by a shortage of behavioral health providers,” said Henry Harbin, M.D., senior advisor to The Bowman Family Foundation. “If that were the explanation, we’d see the same out-of-network use disparities for primary care physicians, which are in even shorter supply than mental health providers, according to HRSA, the federal agency that monitors health care workforce shortages.”
Supporters of the report’s recommendations include more than 40 of the nation’s leading mental health and employer groups, many of whom have provided comments about the importance of the research and resulting recommendations.
Read the full press release, and if you missed our interview with them, check out their full story.
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