Reporting Highlights Progress Denials: Insurers use a patient’s improvement to justify denying mental health coverage.
Patient Harm: Some patients backslid when insurers cut off coverage for treatment at key moments.
During that call, the insurance company psychiatrist concluded Moore had shown enough improvement that she no longer needed intensive treatment.
In 2019 alone, the U.S. spent more than $106.5 billion treating adults with mental illness, of which private insurance paid about a third.
The remaining 10 weeks of treatment at the intensive outpatient program — the treatment BCBS denied — would have cost about $10,000.
Moore found herself calling around to treatment facilities to see which ones would accept her insurance.
ProPublica’s reporters want to talk to mental health providers, health insurance insiders and patients as we examine the U.S. mental health care system. »
