The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008’s (“MHPAEA”) provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the “CAA”) became effective February 10, 2021 and added a requirement for group health plans and health insurance issuers to prepare an analysis demonstrating compliance with MHPAEA’s nonquantitative treatment limitation (“NQTL”) requirements. The CAA specifically requires the Secretaries of the Departments of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), Labor (“DOL”) and the Treasury (collectively, the “Secretaries” or “Tri-Agencies”) to request at least twenty analyses per year starting this year. In fact, the DOL has already started to collect the NQTL analyses mandated by the CAA and is already issuing findings letters based on their initial reviews. The DOL is prioritizing MHPAEA NQTLs as a top area for enforcement. Accordingly, plans and issuers should be actively working on a plan to develop the comparative analyses required under the CAA to be sure they are prepared to respond to a request for the NQTL comparative analyses.
This webinar will provide an overview of the new CAA requirement, tips and strategies for compliance, and the DOL’s recent enforcement in this area.
