Departments Extend Comment Period for Proposed Rule on Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act; Comments Due October 17
Published September 21, 2023
The comment period for the proposed rule had been scheduled to close on October 2, 2023, but has been extended to October 17, 2023.
(Updated September 21, 2023)
The Departments of Health & Human Services (HHS), Labor (DOL) and Treasury (the Departments) have issued a proposed rule with amendments to regulations from the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA) and propose new regulations implementing the nonquantitative treatment limitation (NQTL) comparative analyses requirements under MHPAEA, as amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA, 2021). The proposed rule updates the rules issued in 2014 to make it easier to get in-network mental health care and clarifies the obligations of insurance plans to provide mental health benefits comparable to other medical benefits.
The new proposed rule would:
- amend the existing NQTL standard to prevent plans and issuers from using NQTLs to place greater limits on access to mental health and substance use disorder benefits as compared to medical/surgical benefits;
- require plans and issuers to collect and evaluate relevant data in a manner reasonably designed to assess the impact of NQTLs on access to mental health and substance use disorder benefits and medical/surgical benefits, and would set forth a special rule with regard to network composition;
- amend existing examples and add new examples on the application of the rules for NQTLs to clarify and illustrate the protections of MHPAEA;
- determine content requirements for NQTL comparative analyses and specify how plans and issuers must make these comparative analyses available to the Departments, as well as to an applicable State authority, and participants, beneficiaries, and enrollees;
- Finally, HHS proposes regulatory amendments to implement the sunset provision for self-funded, non-Federal governmental plan elections to opt out of compliance with MHPAEA, as adopted in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (CAA, 2023).
Additionally, the proposed rule is accompanied by a report to Congress that named health insurers that are failing to comply with the laws’ requirements and those plans must notify plan participants of their noncompliance.
Comments are due October 2, 2023. The Departments are requesting comments on ways to improve the coverage of mental health and substance use disorder benefits through other provisions of federal law.
As part of the release of information related to the proposed rule, additional Information can be found in the following resources:
White House Fact Sheet
Technical Release 2033-01P
DOL Enforcement Fact Sheet
Appendix: MHPAEA Guidance Compendium
DOL News Release