Companies that say they provide mental health parity
I haven't had time to properly interlink these pages; to
navigate, use back browser or return (go to if not initially
there) the main index page of this section of mmy site.
Employers known to provide parity in mental health
coverage
The following are known for providing mental health managed
care - and say they provide coverage, though it may have
various problems associated with behavioral managed care.
Sun Microsystems
Texas Instruments
Compaq which has merged with Digital Equipment Corp.
(THese three all got an award from NAMI)
Dell (highly recommended by Austin DMDA members) You pretty
much have to get into production there through a temporary
agency for three months.
Honeywell, Inc. (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Digital Equipment Corporation (who may be Compaq)
IBM - provides a mental health package that combines EAP (employee
assistance program) with behavioral managed care. They self-
insure. Ihaven't a clue how well it works. They say they
saved oodles of money, and also they testified at a House
hearing in an effort to head off any attempt to change ERISA's
preemption of state parity laws, which pretty well says they
know they aren't doing something they know they should be
doing. If they provide full parity, what have they to fear from
having to obey laws that require full parity?
(These three's managed care strategies were discussed at a
Congressional hearing)
Hewlett Packard Co. removed $ limit on mental health care
(article)
The following got an award from NAMI in 1998;
Compaq (DIgital Equipment)
Black and Decker
EEX
Exxon Corporation
Lubrizol
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Prime Tanning
Sun Microsystems
Texas Instruments
SEe also NAMI's Case Studies: Guide to Implementing Parity for Mental ILlness" for
businesses on how to implement parity.
I saw a big discussionof Southern Bell's program somewhere.
The following say they provide good managed behavioral care programs which provide parity and save money.
Chevron
Dupont
Federal Express
Pacific Bell
U.S. West
Bank of America
Wells' Fargo
Teamsters' Union
DuPont
Dow
Xerox
Sterling-Winthrop
Alcan Aluminum
Conoco
McDonnell Douglas - touts effectiveness of its EAP program.
Not clear if they even provide for medical care of mental
illness.
Digital Corporation ******* "has developed a managed care
program which uses no arbitrary benefit limits while
stressing triage guidelines and case management to ensure
early and appropriate services." 80% of their employees
enrolled in managed care by 1995.
Bell South
Prime Tanning Company
Black and Decker
Lubrizol
First National Bank of Chicago
General Motors - specifically the success of their EAP program
and their drug and alcoholism treatment program.
Pitney Bowes use an integrated EAP-managed behavioral health
plan.
Campbell soup - quote by their EAP administrator about getting
employees to help sooner.
Following are the members of Corporate Health Care Coalition,
one of two major lobbying groups on Capitol Hill against
changes of any sort in ERISA either to elimiate teh ERISA
preemption of state insurance law, or to establish a right
to sue HMO's, they have a problem with "medical necessity"
as a criterion for approving care, too!
It is pretty clear what were the sources of the above lists
and how these particular companies came to be the ones talked
about in Congress.
These two lobbing groups, both composed of large, multi-state
companies who self-insure, for the explicit purpose of lobbying on health
care and health insurance bills that affect them, are very
busy on Capitol Hlll, actively and vociferously opposing both
any weakening of ERISA's preemption of state insurance laws,
and opposing patients' rights in general and patients' rights
to sue HMO's in particular. This supports an interpretation
that while these companies are proudly offering full mental
health parity on paper, they are doing something very wrong
such that the passage of fairly weak laws (who wants to get to
the point of having to sue their insurance company?) would force
them to change what they are doing.
Allied Signal, Inc.
Ameritech
Amoco Corporation
AMP Incorporated
Atlantic Richfield Company
Bell Atlantic
BellSouth Corporation
The Boeing Company
Citcorp/Citbank
Cox Enterprises, Inc.
Deere & Company
Digital Equipment Corporation
Dow Chemical Company
DuPont Company
Eastman Kodak Company
General Electric Company
General Motors Corporation
GTE Corporation
Hershey Food Corporation
Intel Corporation
International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
MCI Communications Corporation
SBC Communications
TRW Inc.
United Parcel Service, Inc.
USWest, Inc.
3M
CHCC is closely associated with Health Policy Analysts, both
headed by G. Lawrence Atkins.
Following is the membership of the Board of Directors of
Washington Business Group on Health (companies only)
Dell Computer Corporation
Mead Corporation
Delta Airlines Inc.
IBM Corporation
Black & Decker Corporation
General Mills, Inc
General Electric Company
Dayton Hudson Corporation
DuPont Company
Federal Express Corporation
Ford Motor Company
Xerox Corporation
Texas Instruments, Inc.
Mobil Corporation
Union Pacific Railroad Company
Lucent Technologies
Pepsico, INc.
Sokolov, Schwab, Bennet
GTE Corporation
Owens-Illinois, Inc.
Bell Atlantic
Following is some information about three HMO's that
claim they are being progressive.
Again, these same three companies are variously hitting hard
and directly at reforms of ERISA both to allow patients to sue
HMO's and to remove the ERISA preemption of state insurance
laws, the instigators or antagonists in two current federal
lawsuits that strike at the very heart of mental health parity
laws and what accountability to patients laws there are, and
are widely known to be crappy companyies. For instance, HUMANA
bears a large chunk of responsibility for the closing and
threatened closings of ALL of Austin, Texas's private psychiatric
hospitals on account of they refuse to compensate providers
at adequate levels! This from the Austin American Statesman,
recent article about the closings.
See Dukes v. U.S. Healthcare, Bauman v. U.S. Healthcare, Aetna v. Texas Department of Insurance.
Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Prgram, a large, nonprofit HMO, u
upgraded its mental health coverage after many companies including
some of the above starged providing managed behavioral health
care bec they deemed Kaiser's coverage inadequate. Atleast
as concerns its Northern California operation.
United Health Group
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan
HUMANA. All pushing for allowing physicians full say on
access to specialists, on "care generally" which they say they allow.
Yet another one playing it both ways is AETNA; they actually
are lobbying for reform while striking at the state level
mental health parity laws on the grounds of ERISA in the
courts!
From utilization review people at St. David's, I learned that
somethings about who are the providers for IBM and Dell, which
are supposed to both provide quite good coverage. St. David's
does not do outpatient psychiatric care though - except for
certain kinds of intensive case management and group therapy,
etc.
She said IBM's behavioral health care management company is
Merit Behavioral Care, but when I called Merit, they said
they only provide the EAP which consists of 8 free visits for
counselling. They gave me IBM's managed behavioral health care
number, 1-800-999-9926. The person there appeared to be being
helpful and not beating around the bush. It is always possible
to fake that. Actually, Magellan provides IBM's behavioral
health care - for the two health plans that aren't HMO's.
Unsure of how the three HMO's operate. But the managed care
line told me that while they do try to get people into therapy
"because those people are fully equipped to properly evaluate
people", one can if one wants just ask to be seen by a psychiatrist
and be seen. They do provide only a few on-site psychiatrists
to see, I guess.
Dell also supposed to provide good care. Three alternatives;
Humana, United Health Care, and Genral American Management
Private Health Care System. Humana and the third one use
Integraged Mental Health. United Health Plan did but is
switching to their own, United Behavioral Health. Integrated
Mental Health in her experience is rigid and limited and
also offers access to only its own few psychiatrists.
The following are their own observations and one must keep in
mind that their own evaluations could reflect quixotic criteria
of their own or contain other sources of inaccuracy, also
my notes aren't very clear. An example of quixotic criteria
is NAMI ranking health plans on provision of case management
and social work for the disabled. I don't have specifics on
in what way they find particular companies difficult or good
beyond general whether they approve care and claims.
Magellan not good. (Though possibly the ones who work with IBM
follow that company's wishes.)
Amil is extremely good if you have their own managed care; those who work for Columbia have Value Options or something which is terrible.
Health Smart very difficult.
Unicare is good.
Blue Cross/ Community Blue moderately good! (Individual
experiences and policy actions of Blue Cross nationwide and i
any particular locale are all over the map. They have a
reputation for getting away with whatever they can when they
can, as they did with me, and very likely they do provide
good coverage when employers or unions specifically require it.)
They gave me the tip that Aetna doesn't require outpatient precertification to get care. Their PPO.
Email me at dorasmith24@hotmail.com
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