MMA News
Mental Health Parity Becomes Law
The federal mental health parity legislation that passed in October could mean better coverage for about 40 percent of Minnesotans.
It took more than 12 years to pass the measure, which was championed by two Minnesota lawmakers—the late Sen. Paul Wellstone and Rep. Jim Ramstad. It finally was signed into law this year after it was tacked onto the $700 billion economic bailout plan. During the final days before passage, the MMA sent out an Action Alert! urging members to contact lawmakers to ask them to support the legislation.
The new law does not mandate offering mental health coverage, but it says health plans must institute the same co-pays, out-of-pocket expenses, and coinsurance rates for mental illnesses as for other illnesses. Plans also must cover the same number of hospital days and outpatient visits.
Federal officials have said that the law would improve coverage for 113 million people, including 82 million in employer-sponsored health insurance plans that are not subject to state regulations.
Minnesota has its own mental health parity law, which has been in place since 1995. However, about 40 percent of people with employer-sponsored coverage are not protected by it because their employers’ plans are self-funded and governed by federal rather than state law.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the new requirement will cause premiums to increase by less than
1 percent. Businesses with 50 employees or fewer are exempt from the parity requirements.
The bill goes into effect in October 2009, but patients probably won’t see changes in their coverage until January 2010, when most coverage changes take effect.
Minnesota Ranks High for Palliative Care
Minnesota was ranked as one of the top states in the nation for palliative care.
A state-by-state comparison of the availability of palliative care programs found that Minnesota ranked sixth, with 75 percent of its large and midsized hospitals (defined as those with more than 50 beds) having programs, according to America’s Care of Serious Illness: A State-by-State Report Card on Access to Palliative Care in Our Nation’s
Hospitals.
The study was conducted by the Center to Advance Palliative Care and the National Palliative Care Research Center and published in the October issue of the Journal of Palliative Medicine.
The report says palliative care programs are being established at a rapid pace. Ten years ago, few hospitals in the United States had such programs. Today, 53 percent of hospitals with 50 or more beds have one.
However, the report says the United States is still doing a mediocre job of caring for its most seriously ill, in part because of wide discrepancies in the availability of palliative care between states.
Vermont had the highest percentage of large to midsized hospitals with palliative care programs (100 percent) and Mississippi had the lowest (10 percent). Others that fell near the bottom of the list included Alabama (16 percent), Oklahoma (19 percent), Nevada (23 percent), and Wyoming (25 percent).
For more information about palliative care in Minnesota, go to www.capc.org/reportcard/home/MN/RC/Minnesota.
MMA Warns Against Trans Fatty Acids
The MMA is urging all Minnesotans to avoid trans fatty acids and recommending that hospitals and nursing homes lead the way by limiting the amount of trans fatty acids in the foods they serve.
“Trans fatty acids increase the risk of coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer,” Noel R. Peterson, M.D., president of the MMA, said in a press release that the MMA sent out in October. For that reason, he said, it’s important to encourage patients to read food labels in order to try to avoid foods that contain trans fatty acids.
The press release referred to an article in the October issue of Minnesota Medicine, “Trans Fats: Foods, Facts, and Biology,” that summarized the health risks of trans fatty acids.
The article, written by So Young Bu, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow, and Douglas G. Mashek, Ph.D., an assistant professor of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota, is available online at www.minnesotamedicine.com.
Minnesota Physicians to Shape AMA Policy
The MMA delegation to the American Medical Association (AMA) has submitted six resolutions that the AMA House of Delegates will consider during its interim meeting next month in Orlando, Florida.
The MMA delegation is calling for the AMA to:
Develop a national campaign to educate physicians and the public about the benefits now afforded to them through the Mental Health Parity Act of 2007,
- Reaffirm support for fully funding the 20/220 pathway for economic hardship deferral for medical school graduates with student loans,
- Communicate to physicians about the importance of shared decision-making tools and assist the medical community in moving toward patient-centered care,
- Study the challenges in credentialing low-volume providers and work with the Joint Commission and others to develop and use fair and balanced criteria and methods for credentialing such providers,
- Ensure that the certification requirements for being designated a medical home allow physician-directed primary care teams, which currently provide many of the services of a medical home, to be designated as such, and
- Support physician reimbursement for professional services related to completing cremation authorizations and death certificates, and request the creation of an appropriate payment code for death-certificate completion.
In addition, the Minnesota delegation is co-sponsoring three resolutions with delegates from Iowa and other states relating to Medicare geographic inequity.