June 22, 2007

State Mandates for Treatment for Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders

The purpose of this report, by Gail K. Robinson, Jerome B. Connolly, Melanie Whitter, and Candy A. Maga, is to describe the current status of State mandated insurance coverage for mental and substance use disorders, and to identify trends in the coverage.  The term behavioral in this report refers to mental conditions and substance use disorders. The report is organized into three main topics: State-mandates benefits, state laws regulating mental health and addiction treatment workers, and those workers' prescriptive authority to prescribe psychotropic medication. The first section identifies states that require insurance companies to provide coverage for their insures who have mental or substance use disorders. It also describes the type of coverage and diagnostic conditions to which the insurance applies. The second section describes how States authorize them to practice subject to state licensure and/or certification standards. And finally the last section analyzes state-recognized prescriptive authority for psychotropic medication.