A new law could help millions of older Americans get mental health help

A new law will allow more mental health providers to accept Medicare patients. Could this help close the mental health gap for millions of older Americans?

JUANA SUMMERS, BYLINE: Starting today, the more than 65 million Americans who rely on Medicare will have better access to mental health coverage. Medicare now covers therapy appointments with licensed marriage and family counselors and licensed professional counselors. These are two types of therapists who make up around 40% of the master’s level mental health providers in the country. That is according to the American Counseling Association. Here to help us understand how this new law could affect patients and providers is Victoria Kress. She’s a professor at Youngstown State University and a licensed professional counselor. Victoria, thanks for joining us.

VICTORIA KRESS: Thank you so much for having me on the show.

SUMMERS: I mean, this seems like a bit of an obvious solution to me, I have to say. There’s a big group of people out there who need access to mental health care, and by that I mean Medicare recipients. And there’s another big group of providers who are able to do so. So why did it take so long, do you think, for this law to pass?

KRESS: Yes. Well, there have been many iterations of licensure and legislation that have been put forward and many different legislative techniques and strategies that have been applied to try to get us at the table and to get this passed. I think it was really money, you know? I think – you know, when I would sit with legislators, the first question they would ask is, you know, what is this costed out as? How is this going to impact us fiscally? You know, obviously when you have easier access to care and more people providing services, that’s going to increase the cost. So I think a lot of it was – in my experience, was really just concerns about the costs. You know, I think with COVID, with the pandemic it really put a…