By Logan Wells, News Director | Logan@kymnradio.net
Current U.S. law states that insurance companies are supposed to provide coverage for Mental Healthcare needs. However, U.S. Senator from Minnesota Tina Smith said about the law that “there are loopholes” for insurance companies to avoid providing coverage. Smith stated that insurance companies implement several barriers to getting coverage by requiring additional procedures:
“They will require you to go through different steps of care, even though your doctor has said that you need step C, they say no, you have to do step A&B first. They just throw up a lot of barriers“
– U.S. Senator Tina Smith on the KYMN Morning Show
Smith has been working with the White House on the issue, and President Biden recently signed a new executive order working to fix the issue. While Smith supported the executive order, she is also working in Congress to pass a law that would go further to fixing the problem and implement financial penalties for insurance companies’ red tape and increase funding for mental healthcare programs. She stressed the importance of mental health, especially after the pandemic:
“It absolutely is more that we need to do and I always being an optimist, think that one of the Silver Linings of the pandemic is that it has raised awareness of the of the how many Americans experience some challenge with mental health in their lifetimes, and it has particularly drawn our attention to the challenges that younger people.“
Among the funding items, Smith advocates for training programs to increase the number of workers in the mental healthcare field, citing a shortage, particularly in rural areas. She also continues to advocate for telehealth care, noting its ability to help people with driving and logistical barriers with in-person therapy and care.
At the local level, Northfield Hospital and Clinics CEO Steve Underdahl described the positive impact Smith’s work would have on community hospitals and noted that there is difficult for the hospital to pay for mental healthcare needs:
When we get as an example, we get somebody that that needs mental health care, especially like if it’s a child that has a serious psychiatric disorder, it is terribly difficult to find any place for that person to go and they end up living in the hospital for long periods of time. Sometimes while we just try to find. Resources for them. It’s tremendously expensive and we often get paid very little to nothing. – NH&C CEO Steve Underdahl on the KYMN Morning Show
Underdahl said that what is “Helpful thing for people, but it also can be helpful for hospitals.”
