Insurance that covers a lot of sessions

[flanagan10]

I am just curious, does anyone know of any Insurance plans that cover unlimited frequency of sessions, or at least more than 10 or 15?

What are some of the best insurance plans for Mental health in terms of putting a very small amount of limits on frequency, who you can see, stuff like that?

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[JatPenn]

if you need an unlimited or otherwise indefinite amount of sessions to treat a patient, you aren't doing the right therapy.

 

[psychgeek]

if you need an unlimited or otherwise indefinite amount of sessions to treat a patient, you aren't doing the right therapy.

Nothing like 10 sessions to treat narcissistic personality disorder. Just remember, if it is hard to study then it probably doesn't work.

To answer the OP's question, Blue Cross Blue Shield tends to be relatively generous, but each of the BCBS insurance companies are different.

 

[PsychEval]

SSRI's treat every condition of living, right? JK

 

[psychgeek]

What valid treatment is there for narcissim? I am under the impression there isn't one.

There are plenty of valid Tx but no empirically supported tx according to the definition of "empirically supported" that has been shoved down our throats. My two b*tchy comments are unrelated to one another. First, it is ridiculous to say that treatment of an indefinite length means you are “not doing the right kind of therapy.” NPD is an example of a disorder that I have never seen treated with a time-limited approach. Second, I hate that this focus on ESTs has turned into a dismissal of any treatment that cannot be tested using the EST criteria.

 

[JatPenn]

I think that we will find that everything can be tested empirically. this is the only way we will make real headway as a scientific profession in the truest sense.

There will be a time when willfully ignoring an EST in favor of a non-scientific treatment will be viewed as malpractice.

 

[pingouin]

I am just curious, does anyone know of any Insurance plans that cover unlimited frequency of sessions, or at least more than 10 or 15?

What are some of the best insurance plans for Mental health in terms of putting a very small amount of limits on frequency, who you can see, stuff like that?

I worked for a managed behavioral healthcare company for a while, and the plans I worked on all had "unlimited sessions", as well as unlimited inpatient days, PHP days, etc. The plans were relatively local (a few out of area members) and I believe the reason for the benefit structure was our state's mental health parity law- if your medical benefits are unlimited, then your mental health benefits must be as well. The company had several other offices across the country, and my understanding is that many of the plans managed in those offices did have benefit caps.

Regarding "unlimited" benefits- the caveat is that they were "unlimited based on medical necessity". Therefore, if a clinician could make a case for daily outpatient sessions for a year, the member had the benefit for that. Since my company's philosophy was "All of our providers are trying to milk us" (I wish I were kidding here.. I heard that from my admin more times than I care to count), guidelines were developed to help our outpatient case managers review for continued sessions. Treatment plans were required from the clincians about every 3-4 sessions, which was extremely cumbersome for both the clinicians as well as my coworkers. If a treatment plan came in and the number was hitting at or above the recommended # of sessions, there was a letter saying "ok, time to start wrapping up- we're giving you two more sessions, call us if you disagree with this".

The guidelines we were *supposed to* follow were something like 7 sessions for adjustment DOs, 10-12 for anxiety DOs, 15-18 for affective DOs. The one that slayed me was 10-12 for ADHD/behavioral DOs, long enough to get in, create and implement a behavioral mod plan, and get right back out. Luckily we had a pretty good group of case managers at the time who were pretty willing to make exceptions as long as the clinician did call and give a reasonable answer as to why they needed to continue care. However, there's been something like a 90% turnover of case managers in the last 8 months in my old office, so God only knows what's going on over there now.

Inpatient "unlimited" benefits is another beast entirely......

 

[KatieOConnor]

21st century multiplan is a small company that allows for 60 visits a year. Almost no providers accept it and so it pays for 80% of what is reasonable and customary out of network. And for them, reasonable and customary is actually reasonable and customary.

That is about the best insurance policy I've ever heard of.

 

[Vidushaka]

I was wondering whether Insurance companies are skeptical of PsyD professionals. Do they get reimbursement as easily as PhD clinicans?

 

[PsychEval]

I was wondering whether Insurance companies are skeptical of PsyD professionals. Do they get reimbursement as easily as PhD clinicans?

I don’t think insurance companies are skeptical of PsyD's, some Ph.D. psychologists are the only one’s who care about such things. Insurance companies are skeptical of providers who indicate they conduct psychodynamic psychotherapy (it is associated with long term), supportive therapy, or if they list they specialize in DID. Also, if you list you do any kind of fringe therapy you may not get on a panel. PsyD's have the same license as PhD's and EdD's, so yes they get reimbursed as easily.

 

[PsychEval]

I just wanted to see if anyone was awake. Have a good weekend Dr. Snow.