A little remarked upon requirement in the health law expands treatments for people with cerebral palsy, autism and other developmental disabilities. But some advocates and policy experts are concerned that insurers may find ways to sidestep the new requirement.
The health law requires that individual and small group plans sold on or off the health insurance marketplaces cover 10 essential health benefits, including “rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices.”
But before the health law passed, coverage of similar services for habilitative purposes—that is, to help people learn or maintain functional skills, rather than regain them—was often excluded.
But advocates fear that insurers may avoid providing benefits to the extent needed by people, many of them children born with serious developmental problems that require life-long care. That’s because instead of clearly defining habilitative services and spelling out what must be covered in individual and small group plans under the law, the Department of Health and Human Services permitted states and insurers to decide.
Read more about this at the Kaiser Health News website in its January 14,2014 .
