Spillover Effects of Benefit Expansions and Carve-Outs on Psychotropic Medication Use and Costs

Spillover Effects of Benefit Expansions and Carve-Outs on Psychotropic Medication Use and Costs

Blog Article

This paper extends the previous literature examining the impacts of managed behavioral health care carve-outs and mental health parity mandates on mental health and substance abuse (MH/SA) specialty treatment use and costs by igora vibrance 6-68 considering the effects on psychotropic prescription medication costs.We use multivariate panel data methods to remove underlying secular growth trends, driven by increased demand for improved MH/SA treatment related to pharmaceutical innovations.We find that psychotropic medication costs continued to increase after the introduction of a substantial benefit expansion and carve-out to thread feathers cabernet a managed behavioral health organization (MBHO), offsetting large declines in inpatient specialty MH/SA costs.

However, we find evidence that the MBHO may have restrained growth in prescription medication spending.