Guest Opinion: The lone private holdout, Regence continues to exclude or limit coverage for key autism therapies. Next month, the state Supreme Court will decide whether to make them.
Will the state Supreme Court force Regence to cover autism treatments? Credit: http://www.classactionsnews.com
Regence BlueShield is now the lone remaining major health insurer in Washington State that refuses to reimburse parents for treatment prescribed to their autistic children. On June 12, Regence will defend its position before the Washington Supreme Court in O.S.T. v. Regence BlueShield. That's when the Supreme Court will consider whether to affirm a lower courts ruling that ordered Regence to cover speech, occupational and physical therapy treatments for autism.
Today we all have friends who have been touched by autism. In the past 10 years, diagnoses of childhood autism have skyrocketed. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is now more common than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined. In 2013, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder was one in 50 for children aged 6-17. That represents a 72 percent increase since 2007.
Scientific research shows that early intervention and treatment of children with autism is highly effective. The literature indicates that currently available treatment allows almost half the treated children who receive it to be mainstreamed by first grade.
Early treatment dramatically reduces social costs. A seven-year old study estimated that, in the middle of the last decade, the incremental societal cost for a person with ASD was $3.2 million. But with rapidly improving treatment an autistic child who receives therapy early on is much more likely to lead a productive life, thus easing these burdensome costs.
Given these facts, it seems reasonable that private health insurers would cover treatment of childhood autism. Indeed, a landmark Washington law requires health insurers to pay. Enacted in 2005, the Mental Health Parity Act aimed to end discrimination in health insurance against people with mental health conditions, including neuro-developmental conditions like autism.
Despite the law, Washington insurers continued to exclude or limit coverage of key autism therapies. Diagnoses and improvements in treatment grew, but insurers failed to keep up and a string of recent lawsuits followed. Parents of autistic children sued Group Health Cooperative in 2010, and then Premera Blue Cross and Regence BlueShield in 2011 to try to obtain coverage. And the parents won.
On April 17, 2012, a Washington Superior Court ruled that the exclusion in [Premeras] policies for [s]ervices, therapy and supplies related to the treatment of developmental delay or neurodevelopmental disabilities violates Washington public policy and the Mental Health Parity Act. Group Health lost its suit in June 2012; Regence BlueShield in December of that year.
The courts required the insurers to immediately cover speech, occupational and physical therapies for childhood ASD. But the court orders only apply to some, not all, of the companies plans. Regence, for example, administers numerous employer self-funded insurance plans. Those plans aren't subject to the court rulings and Regence is not voluntarily extending autism coverage for them.
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Regence refusing to cover autism treatments