Has anyone heard about a change in legislation that is going to make it so that insurance providers

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...can no longer limit you to, say, 20 therapist visits/year? I heard this somewhere, but cannot confirm. It's supposed to happen in August of this year, according to what I heard.

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1. The new parity law went into effect Jan. 1.

http://www.cms.gov/HealthInsReformforConsume/04_TheMentalHealthParityAct.asp


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/01/AR2010030102903.html


The law, which took effect for most plans Jan. 1, applies to groups of more than 50 employees and is designed to end what Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called "needless and arbitrary limits on care." Higher deductibles, steeper co-pays and other restrictions are no longer allowed for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

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2. Hmm. I did a bit more googling and THIS is what I was looking for:

http://www.wellstone.org/about-us/pass-wellstone-billl/what-wellstone-bill

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/10/03/parity_finalpassage/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/washington/06health.html

Basically, it eliminates the insurance companies' ability to say that your mental health issue has to be a "biologically based" one in order to qualify for ongoing treatment (instead of being limited to 30 visits or whatever). Which was a totally arbitrary measure they used to cut out people with "lighter" mental illnesses and addictions. The law is still being "firmed up" and will go into effect in July. The reason my provider won't change to reflect the new law until Aug. is because that's when the current contract my employer has with the insurance company is renewed (so, presumably, it could take a while for other people with different dates of renewal (or it maybe could be earlier)).