The Effect of Expanded Mental Health Benefits on Treatment Initiation and Specialist Utilization

Objective. To measure the effects of a mental health benefit design change on treat-ment initiation for psychiatric disorders of employees of a large U.S.-based company. Data Sources. Mental health treatment administrative claims data plus eligibility in-formation provided by the company for the years 1995–1998. Study Design. Wemeasure the effect of a change in mental health benefits consisting of three major elements: a company-wide effort to destigmatize mental illness; reduced copayments for mental health treatment; and an effort to increase access to specialty mental health providers. Data Extraction Methods. We identified the subsample of employees that were continuously enrolled in the company’s health plan over the period 1995–1998, were between the ages of 18 and 65, and were actively employed. Principal Findings. Our results suggest that the combined effect of destigmatization and reduced copayments led to an 18 percent increase ( po.01) in the probability of initiatingmental health treatment. The results suggest that the effort to increase access to specialty providers was effective, but only for nonphysician providers: initiation a