Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Have a Minute?

Want equal coverage for e.d.'s and other psychiatric matters? If you have a free moment today, please contact your local Representative, using the instructions below, provided by the American Psychological Association. We're getting awfully close to mental health parity, but insurance companies are still taking advantage of certain loopholes (e.g., providing session limits that bypass out-of-pocket maximum allowances), creating a significant mental/physical health discrepancy. For mental health parity, act now!

APA Practice Organization Action Alert

Date: September 9, 2008

Re: National Call-in Day for Parity

Congress has just returned from the August recess and has three short weeks to pass the historic bipartisan agreement on parity before adjourning for the year. Your Senators and Representative need to hear from you on Wednesday, September 10 that Congress must finish its work and send parity to the President’s desk this month.

Targets: All U.S. Senators and Representatives

Action:

Call your Senators and Representative on Wednesday, September 10 using the toll-free Parity Hotline: 1-866-PARITY-4 (1-866-727-4894).

The Parity Hotline reaches the Capitol Hill Switchboard, which can connect callers to their legislators when specifically requested by name or their ZIP code is provided.

Message:

I am a constituent calling to ask Senator/Representative __________ to urge the congressional leadership to pass the historic bipartisan agreement on mental health parity this month before Congress adjourns.

4 comments:

Kelly said...

Thanks for letting us know about this. I am an attorney and when I was doing an internship in law school I wrote a memo on the Massachusetts Mental Health Parity Law (which is probably one of the best in the country. Massachusetts is pretty good for consumer rights). I have been shocked since then to discover how many "parity" laws shortchange mental health coverage.

Anonymous said...

My representatives are already on board with this, working hard on it. Woohoo for them!

G.R.M. said...

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Agnes Mildew said...

I wish we had something like this going on in the UK. I am trying my damnedest to get help for my own ED and to my utter horror, there is a single ED group in my county, the waiting list of psychotherapy is six months and my GP has given up on the specialist clinic which constantly rebuffs his referrals.
Six months...You could be dead by then, couldn't you?