May 16, 2019
May 16, 2019 - /PressAdvantage/ - Patients cannot access full range of critical treatment services, report says.
A report by Serenity Wellness Solutions reveals that insurance plans nationwide are not covering the necessary services for people with addiction. This comprehensive review of the addiction benefits offered in the current Essential Health Benefits (EHB) benchmark plans found that none of the plans are adequate and over two-thirds violate the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“Our findings reveal that people with addiction may not be receiving effective treatment because insurance plans aren’t covering the full range of evidence-based care,” said Serenity Wellness Solutions. “For example, our review did not find a single state that covers all of the approved medications used to treat opioid addiction.”
The EHB benchmark plans determine the specific addiction benefits available to the 12.7 million people who are insured under ACA plans. The ACA requires plans to cover substance use disorder services, which are designated as an EHB. The ACA also requires that these services be provided at parity, meaning they are equal or comparable to medical and surgical benefits. But the ACA does not identify which benefits should be covered; instead, each state chooses an EHB benchmark plan to determine which addiction benefits must be covered by the ACA plans sold in that state.
Historically, insurance coverage for addiction has been insufficient. When people cannot access effective treatment, it can lead to disability, premature death, and a range of other costly health and social consequences. Conversely, effective treatment has been shown to not only save lives, but also reduce health care costs and decrease drug-related crimes.
“We are still a long way from treating addiction like a disease,” said Serenity Wellness Solutions. “Insurers are still not providing the same level of benefits for addiction treatment and services as they do for medical or surgical care. The absence of sufficient coverage for medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction is particularly alarming given the number of people dying or suffering on a daily basis. This kind of health care discrimination would never be tolerated during an epidemic for any other life-threatening disease.”
The report calls on states and insurers to revise their plans to comply with the law and cover the full range of effective addiction treatments. Currently, there is no penalty for states or insurance plans that are not complying with the law, which means that unless there are significant changes to the plans, those living with addiction will continue to be denied access to effective treatments.
###
For more information about Serenity Wellness Solutions Tacoma, WA 98408, contact the company here:
Serenity Wellness Solutions Tacoma, WA 98408
253-203-1668
Tacoma, WA 98408
ReleaseID: 60027991
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has long succeeded in isolating and undermining opponents. The Gen Z protests pose a challenge unlike any he has faced before.
The leaders of the Cockroach Janta Party, an Indian youth movement, had been detained by the police on Saturday before they could lead protests over voting rights.
Pakistan’s president declared a state of emergency and suspended the provincial government of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan on Sunday, the president’s office said, following allegations it has failed to tackle Islamist militancy. The constitution allows the federal government to take over some or all provincial government functions during an emergency. The provincial governor will take charge with an advisory council, Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar told a news conference in Islamabad,...
Scattered protests against sweeping revisions to India’s voter rolls broke out on Sunday in New Delhi. The police met earlier protests with an extraordinary show of force.
Returning to China after decades away, a correspondent finds bullet trains, dazzling skylines — and a surveillance state more paranoid and pervasive than ever.
US President Donald Trump wants to banish the word “artificial” from artificial intelligence, saying it makes one of the world’s most consequential technologies sound “fake”. Across the Pacific, however, China’s name for the technology has long carried a different connotation – one that places humans, rather than artificiality, at its centre. Trump last week signed an executive order directing US federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence”, or AI, with “Super Intelligence”, or SI, in...
The leaders of India’s youth-led online “cockroach” movement were released on Sunday, their lawyer said, a day after they were detained to thwart a major protest against the chief election commissioner. The leaders pledged on Sunday to continue their campaign against the election commissioner, hours after they were released. Thousands of protesters were detained before Saturday’s planned demonstration in New Delhi, according to the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which called on supporters to keep...
Roziah Jelali has a tip or two on catching a turtle poacher: carrying a pair of binoculars and having patience in spades are key to doing the job well. The 36-year-old Malaysian volunteer ranger once spent three months in Sabah tracking a man whom she suspected of illegally capturing protected turtles. Once thriving off the azure seas of Omadal Island in the Malaysian state, many turtles had been hunted down, killed and sold for their meat, according to conservation experts. Recounting the 2023...
The denuclearisation of North Korea has become an “increasingly improbable” goal and the United States and its allies should move beyond it to devote their diplomatic efforts to talks on arms limitations and crisis communication, the director of the US-based North Korean analysis website 38 North said. Recalling the 20 years since North Korea carried out its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006, Jenny Town said in a written interview that “a pivotal moment” in Pyongyang’s weapons development...
The new runway in Ban Keun is currently used by only small jets. Neighboring nations are watching warily to see if Beijing expands it for larger aircraft.
Japanese semiconductor materials giant Sumitomo Bakelite plans to expand production of advanced chip packaging materials in China and Singapore, marking the second such announcement for its Chinese operations in less than four months as artificial intelligence drives demand for more sophisticated semiconductors. The Tokyo-based company said on Friday that it would add production lines for mould underfill (MUF) materials and compression-moulding granules at its facilities in Suzhou, eastern...
A Thai government proposal to charge export duties on durians, a major cash crop, could raise prices for the fruit in China – its primary market – along with the quality, analysts said. Thailand’s draft bill to establish a fund for research and “sustainable” development of the durian sector would include the collection of fees, the government’s public relations department said last month. Southeast Asian media outlets and agricultural publications have tipped the export duty to be as high as 2...
YOUR NEWS, OUR NETWORK.
Do you have Great News you want to tell the world?
Be it updates about your business or your community, you can make sure that it’s heard by submitting your story to our network reaching hundreds of news sites across 6 verticals.