California regulators said Monday that insurers must provide speech, occupational and physical therapies to their autistic members but rejected pleas to require insurers to cover the cost of behavior therapy that aims to help patients live in society.
At issue is so-called applied behavior analysis, a therapy that teaches patients skills such as self-feeding and stopping injurious behaviors such as head banging. The therapy can cost as much as $70,000 a year per patient.
Parents of children with autism have argued in lawsuits and in complaints to regulators that insurers, by refusing to pay for an array of autism care, are ignoring the Mental Health Parity Act. The 2000 state law requires insurers to treat mental conditions the same as medical conditions.
Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S., more prevalent than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes and pediatric AIDS combined. There are an estimated 185,000 Californians with autism.
The state now treats about 37,000 significantly impaired autistic children, delivering a variety of services, including applied behavior analysis -- at a cost of more than $320 million a year.
The disorder impairs communication and socialization and is often marked by repetitive behaviors such as rocking and head banging. Its cause is unknown, and there is no cure.
The state's major insurers and HMOs routinely refuse to pay for applied behavior analysis, arguing, most recently, that it is an educational service, not medicine. The insurers also say that covering applied behavioral analysis will drive up premiums for everyone, although studies from other states have found such increases to be minimal.
Parents disputing the denials have been winning appeals to regulators in recent months as research on the effectiveness of the therapy has become more widely recognized.
In 15 of 16 recent disputes over insurance denials of applied behavior analysis for individual children, state-impaneled physician-reviewers have declared the therapy to be medically necessary. Those decisions required the insurers to pay for the treatment. The 16th case is pending.
The Department of Managed Health Care stepped into the controversy Monday, sending insurers a letter seeking to clarify their coverage obligations to cover autism and related disorders.
