[Health Insurance] 61, Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act

This podcast is made by Ran Chen, who holds an EA license, Insurance and Securities licenses (Series 6, 63, 65), and the CFP® designation. He is passionate about opening access to high-quality exam preparation resources and helping learners prepare more effectively for professional certification exams. In this episode you will learn: - MHPAEA requires parity for financial requirements and treatment limitations between mental health/substance use disorder benefits and medical/surgical benefits. - The 2026 'Meaningful Benefits Standard' mandates that plans cover core mental health and substance use disorder treatments in every classification where medical benefits are offered. - Non-Quantitative Treatment Limitations (NQTLs), like prior authorization, cannot be applied more stringently to mental health benefits than to medical benefits. - A key exam trap is misunderstanding that MHPAEA mandates parity in limitations, not that it forces plans to offer mental health benefits in the first place. - The Act generally applies to group health plans with more than 50 employees, a detail often used in scenario-based exam questions. For more free exam prep tools, practice questions, and AI-powered explanations, visit https://open-exam-prep.com/ or YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Open-exam-prep