Opinion: Doctors, not insurance companies, should decide treatment for mental illness

  • 📰 denverpost
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 35 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 17%
  • Publisher: 72%

United States News News

United States United States Latest News,United States United States Headlines

Opinion | 'One thing on my mind, and which I’m sure is on the mind of many of my colleagues, is how we’re going to combat Colorado’s worsening mental health crisis.'

one in five Americans in 2020 received treatment for their mental health — with 16% being prescribed medication.

One such barrier is step therapy. Step therapy is a common insurance practice where before a patient can be prescribed a medication their provider thinks would be the best treatment, they must first sample other, less-expensive drugs; insurance will not cover the provider-recommended treatment until cheaper alternatives are tried first.

Untreated or inadequately treated mental illnesses also pose a serious impediment to our economic growth. A study published by thefound that major depressive disorder , among the most common SMI’s, is associated with significant lost work performance, equating to 27 excess lost workdays annually per worker suffering from this ailment.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 13. in US

United States United States Latest News, United States United States Headlines