Tips For Increasing The Coverage Your Insurance Provides For Mental Illness
If you have a mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, or many others, then you likely are going to need to seek professional treatment in order to ensure that you recover as thoroughly and as quickly as possible. It is very difficult for people to recover on their own and it can sometimes be difficult for people to get the financial help they need from their insurance companies. Insurance companies want to make absolutely sure that they are providing care for people who actually need it. Here are some tips for showing insurance companies that you are one of those people.
1. Get a Diagnosis From a Doctor
Your first step is to make sure that you get a diagnosis from a doctor that specializes in treating mental illness. This diagnosis will come from the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and is recognized by insurance companies as a valid indicator that someone truly needs assistance. If you are having a hard time getting coverage to even go to a mental health professional, go to your usual doctor, explain the problems that you are having, and ask him or her to refer you to a mental health professional that is in your insurance company's network.
2. Escalate Care Slowly
Unless you are in a crisis, insurance companies prefer to keep people at lower levels of care. This makes sense due to the fact that going straight to a higher level of care might be worthless if a person is not yet committed to recovery. As a result, unless you have gone through some sort of intensive outpatient treatment program for your mental illness, your insurance company will hesitate to send you to an inpatient rehab center.
An example of escalating care is starting with seeing a therapist once a week. Then escalate to twice a week. Then go to a group and see your therapist. From there, you will want to see your therapist and go to intensive outpatient treatment. Once you are in intensive outpatient treatment, you can make the change to day treatment, followed by rehab. The advantages of this escalation is that there is a good chance that you have the chance to find what you need to recover without disrupting your entire life to go rehab. This will make the months after treatment much easier if you still have your job.
For more information, talk to a company that specializes in health insurance, like Quesenberry Agency For Blue Cross-Blue Shield. They will be able to give you more specific information about the channels that you should go through.