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The Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act (MHPAEA) of 2008 aimed to eliminate discriminatory health plan coverage that prevents individuals from receiving effective mental health and substance use disorder treatment. MHPAEA requires that health plans not design or apply financial requirements and treatment limitations that impose a greater burden on access (that is, are more restrictive) to in-network mental health and substance use disorder benefits than plans and issuers impose on access to comparable medical/surgical benefits.
In this study, Research Triangle Institute (RTI) used 2019–2021 information from one of the largest commercial insurance claims databases to evaluate a key measure of health plan benefits that indicates whether individuals can access in-network behavioral health treatment as readily as medical/surgical treatment: the rate of use of out-of-network behavioral health providers.