Mental Health Parity in Interventional Psychiatry: Access, Ethical and Policy Implications

Mental health disorders are a significant public health problem with profound impacts on individual health, communities and society. Interventional approaches are limited in both utilization and access, despite their strong evidence base in specific disorders. The objective of this review is to describe factors and challenges influencing equity in interventional psychiatry.

Mental health care inequities are pervasive and persistent. For interventional psychiatry tools, even with current evidence of interventions' cost-effectiveness, inequities in access persist based on geographic context, socioeconomic status, and race, as well as insurers' reluctance to cover some of them. A wide range of social factors impact access and utilization of interventional psychiatry tools. To ensure parity, we need strategies to increase awareness and to address access and utilization disparities found across these interventions, in addition to keeping up-to-date mental health coverage policies based on new safety and effectiveness evidence.