Between the changes brought on by healthcare reform and trying to comply with the new mental health parity regs, employers are having trouble keeping up.
As a result, several groups lead by the American Benefits Council, National Retail Federation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce have asked the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) to delay the application of the mental health parity regs for at least a year.
The interim final rules for implementing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 were scheduled to take effect July 1 (a brief synopsis of the rules can be found here).
The primary concern of the groups pushing for the delay is that if plan sponsors make plan design changes to comply with the mental health parity requirements, their plans would lose their “grandfathered” status — meaning they’d then have to comply with certain provisions in the health reform law.
The EBSA hasn’t said whether it’ll delay the regulations, but it has acknowledged that it has received a ton of comments on the regs (more than 5,000).
Do you think the feds should push back the date the mental health parity rules take effect? Share your thoughts in the Comments Box below.
