Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act of 2008

On October 3, 2008, President Bush signed into law the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.Contained within this important but unrelated piece of emergency legislation is the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (the “Act”), which requires group health plans to apply the same treatment limits on mental health or substance-related disorder benefits as they do for medical and surgical benefits. The Act also extends this parity requirement to inpatient and outpatient services, whether in-network or out-of-network, and to emergency care services.