March 2015

Overview

Mental health is a state of emotional, psychological, and social well-being. A person’s mental health affects how he thinks, feels, and acts, and helps determine how she handles stress, relates to others, and makes choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from birth, childhood, and adolescence through adulthood.

According to data collected in 2013, nearly 1 in 5 American adults experienced a mental health issue and more than 1 in 10 adolescents experienced a period of major depression in the past year. In addition, nearly 1 in 20 American adults lived with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.¹

Learn More About Mental Health

Mental Health and the Affordable Care Act

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) of 2008 requires health insurers and group health plans to provide the same level of benefits for mental and/or substance use treatment and services that they do for medical/surgical care. The Affordable Care Act further expands MHPAEA’s requirements by ensuring that most health insurance plans, including those offered on the Health Insurance Marketplace, cover many behavioral health treatments and services. The Affordable Care Act in conjunction with MHPAEA expands mental health and substance abuse benefits to over 60 million Americans. Most health plans now must cover preventive services like depression screening for adults and behavioral assessments for children at no cost. Additionally, as of 2014, most plans cannot deny coverage or charge more due to pre-existing health conditions, including mental illnesses. To learn more about mental health and the Affordable Care Act, please visit healthcare.gov.

Leading Health Indicators

Leading Health Indicators (LHI) are critical health issues that – if tackled appropriately – will dramatically reduce the leading causes of death and preventable illnesses. The Mental Health LHIs are:

• Suicides
• Adolescents who experience major depressive episodes

Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going

Over the past decade, the suicide rate increased 16.7%, from 10.8 per 100,000 population (age adjusted) in 2003 to 12.6 in 2013. In 2013, 10.7% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 years reported having had a major depressive episode (MDE) in the past 12 months. Rates of suicide and youth MDEs varied by sex, race/ethnicity, and age.

Who’s Leading the Leading Health Indicators?

The Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project: Improving Access to Mental Health Treatment

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials is working on building the capacity of state health agencies to facilitate systems transformation activities by disseminating best practices and materials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services State Innovation Model (SIM) Initiative related to behavioral health (which includes both mental health and substance use), and other key areas impacting population health. The goal of this initiative is to create multi-payer models with a broad mission to improve health, improve care, and decrease costs for beneficiaries of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Behavioral health has often been excluded from traditional primary care practice, making access to these services difficult, particularly for children. To address this concern, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services has used the SIM grant to advance the integration of behavioral health and primary care for children. Specifically, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health is enhancing their existing program, the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project (MCPAP), with grant funds to help pediatricians better meet the needs of children and youth with behavioral health issues.²

Established in 2004, MCPAP is a system of regional children’s psychiatric consultation teams designed to improve access to treatment for children with behavioral health problems. MCPAP achieves this by strengthening pediatric primary care providers’ (PCPs) ability to screen, diagnose, and treat children with mild to moderate behavioral health problems (e.g., ADHD, anxiety, depression) in primary care. Additionally, it supports PCPs in referring children with more serious behavioral health problems to appropriate psychiatric specialty care. As a result, MCPAP promotes the rational utilization of child psychiatry for the most complex children, such as children whose conditions require treatment with complex or multiple psychiatric medications.

Read the Full Story

Leading Health Indicator Infographic

¹ http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/2013MHDetTabs/NSDUH-MHDetTabs2013.pdf [PDF - 3.3 MB]

² Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Department of Mental Health. Annual Report: Fiscal Year 2014. Available from http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/docs/dmh/publications/annualreport-fiscalyear2014.pdf [PDF - 426 KB]

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