The MHP Hits Just Keep on Coming

By: Kelly Dempsey, Esq.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about Mental Health Parity (MHP) violations and a summary of a recent court case out of the Southern District of New York. In this short amount of time, as predicted, another court has weighed in on the same topic – this time out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (the Ninth Circuit is the federal court circuit that oversees the majority of the west coast). The Ninth Circuit heard the case on appeal from the Western District of Washington State.

In Danny P. v. Catholic Health Initiatives, 2018 WL 2709733 (9th Cir. 2018), the employer and self-funded medical plan were sued by a participant for excluding coverage for the participant’s daughter’s room and board at a residential treatment facility. The participant argued that the plan’s coverage for mental health was not in parity with the medical surgical benefits. The trial court sided with the employer, finding that the interim final regulations in effect at the time of the treatment did not prohibit the denial or exclusion in general.

As noted in the prior blog, while the interim final rules were not clear, the final regulations provide a clear explanation that plans must treat residential treatment facilities the same as skilled nursing facilities to show parity between MHP and medical/surgical benefits.

The Ninth Circuit reversed the trial court decision and held that the MHP statute precludes the plan from providing coverage for room and board for a licensed skilled nursing facility (i.e., medical and surgical treatment) but not at a residential treatment facility (i.e., mental health and substance abuse treatment). The court did acknowledge that the interim final regulations did not provide definitive guidance, but those regulations “strong suggested” a lack of coverage for residential treatment facilities when skilled nursing facilities were covered would be impermissible. The case has been sent back to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision – in other words, the Ninth Circuit Court told the trial court they were wrong (that the denial was impermissible under MHP) and to reassess the resolution.