Medicare will expand to cover more mental health needs in 2024
Newsy
This expansion will potentially add more than 400,000 mental health professionals to the mix — but first they have to sign up.
This is the biggest expansion of Medicare's mental health services since 1989. Let's take a look at the problem first.
Until now, Medicare — the federal health insurance for people over 65 or some younger people with disabilities — has only covered services provided by certain mental health professionals like psychiatrists and psychologists.
But many of those professionals — 124,000 of them — have opted out of Medicare mostly due to the fact they don't want to deal with low payments, reimbursement or bureaucratic red tape.
Fewer providers means it's much harder for the 65 million Americans on Medicare to find mental health help. And the need is there.
According to the CDC, 20% of people 55 or older experience some type of mental health concerns. Common conditions include anxiety, severe cognitive impairment, and mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder.
