Medicare Mental health care (outpatient)
How often is it covered?
Medicare Part B (Medical Insurance) covers mental health services and visits with these types of health professionals:
- Psychiatrist or other doctor
- Clinical psychologist
- Clinical social worker
- Clinical nurse specialist
- Nurse practitioner
- Physician assistant
Medicare only covers these visits, often called counseling or therapy, when they’re provided by a health care provider who accepts assignment. Search provider list.
Part B covers outpatient mental health services, including services that are usually provided outside a hospital, like in these settings:
- A doctor’s or other health care provider’s office
- A hospital outpatient department
- A community mental health center
Part B also covers outpatient mental health services for treatment of inappropriate alcohol and drug use.
Part B helps pay for these covered outpatient services:
- One depression screening per year. The screening must be done in a primary care doctor’s office or primary care clinic that can provide follow-up treatment and referrals.
- Individual and group psychotherapy with doctors or certain other licensed professionals allowed by the state where you get the services.
- Family counseling, if the main purpose is to help with your treatment.
- Testing to find out if you’re getting the services you need and if your current treatment is helping you.
- Psychiatric evaluation.
- Medication management.
- Certain prescription drugs that aren’t usually “self administered”(drugs you would normally take on your own), like some injections.
- Diagnostic tests.
- Partial hospitalization.
- A one-time “Welcome to Medicare” preventive visit. This visit includes a review of your potential risk factors for depression.
- A yearly “Wellness” visit. This is a good time to talk to your doctor or other health care provider about changes in your mental health so they can evaluate your changes year to year.
Who’s eligible?
Your costs in Original Medicare
- You pay nothing for your yearly depression screening if your doctor or health care provider accepts assignment.
- 20% of the Medicare-approved amount for visits to a doctor or other health care provider to diagnose or treat your condition. The Part B deductible applies.
- If you get your services in a hospital outpatient clinic or hospital outpatient department, you may have to pay an additional copayment or coinsurance amount to the hospital. Copied from Medicare.Gov
See our page on
Special Needs Plans – Mental Health
Find a Therapist
Magellan Assist
Mental Health Provider Finder
All Insurance Companies – Mental Health Provider Finder
Psychology Today - Find a Provider
one estimate suggests 42% of therapists in California don’t accept insurance at all. Without the financial help of insurance, clients pay an average of $130 out of pocket per session. It can be much higher in major cities. Read more: What's stopping therapists from providing affordable Mental Health Care?
Google Search for ONLINE Therapists
Here’s what I googled for online therapists. Check with them and ask what Insurance Plans they take. Then double check on the official Insurance Company provider list.
- apa.org/online-therapy
- talk space
- amwell.com/online-therapy/
- break through.com/
- live health online.com/psychology
Medicare & You - Mental Health
Medicare & Mental Illness # 11358 2 pages
Medicare & Mental Illness # 10184
Our Webpage on Medicare & Mental Health
Los Angeles Consumer Resources #Directory
Our webpage on EOC Evidence of Coverage - Plain English, even if they are 2 to 300 pages
Guide to Mental Health Benefits (The Mighty)
Compliance Assistance Guide from DOL.Gov Health Benefits under Federal Law
Mental Health Videos
- Mental Health Video - updates on Mental Health Parity - Mental Health must be covered the same as physical health
- Video Medicare-covered benefits for mental health.
- PBS Bedlam VIDEO In an effort to get to the bottom of the current mental health crisis in the U.S., psychiatrist and documentarian Kenneth Paul Rosenberg M.D. chronicles personal, poignant stories of those suffering from mental illness, including his own family, to bring to light this epidemic and possible solutions. Shot over the course of five years, Bedlam takes viewers inside Los Angeles County’s overwhelmed and vastly under-resourced psych ER, a nearby jail warehousing thousands of psychiatric patients, and the homes — and homeless encampments — of people affected by severe mental illness, where silence and shame often worsen the suffering. See Trailer Available till October 30th
- Sharp Health Care - Mental Health Videos - Play List
- Mental Health Insurance Coverage: Get the Whole Picture
CMS Learning Aid for Mental Health Professionals
See our Main Webpage on Mental Health
Behavioral health integration services
If you have a behavioral health condition (like depression, anxiety, or another behavioral health condition), Medicare may pay for a health care provider’s help to manage that condition if your provider offers the Psychiatric Collaborative Care Model.
The
Psychiatric Collaborative Care Model
is a set of integrated behavioral health services that includes care management support if you have a behavioral health condition. This care management support may include care planning for
- behavioral health conditions,
- ongoing assessment of your condition,
- medication support,
- counseling,
- or other treatments that your provider recommends.
Your health care provider will ask you to sign an agreement for you to get this set of services on a monthly basis. You pay a monthly fee, and the Part B deductible and coinsurance apply.
More Details & Limitations on Coverage
This article is intended for physicians, providers and suppliers submitting claims to Medicare contractors (carriers and/or Part A/B Medicare Administrative Contractors (A/B MACs) for mental health services provided to Medicare beneficiaries.
The Social Security Act (Section 1862(a)(1)(A)) excludes from coverage services that are not “reasonable and necessary for the diagnosis or treatment of an illness or injury or to improve the functioning of a malformed body member.”
This booklet gives the following Medicare mental health services information:
Covered and non-covered mental health services
- Eligible professionals
- Eligible professionals commonly used Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes
- National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI)
- Provider charts
- Assignment
- Outpatient psychiatric hospital services
- Family psychotherapy (with the patient present and their treatment is the primary purpose) or (without the patient present, is medically reasonable and necessary, and their treatment is the primary purpose)
- Individual and group psychotherapy (individual therapy with one or more therapists and more than one individual in a therapy session with one or more therapists)
- Psychoanalysis (therapy that treats mental disorders by investigating the interaction of conscious and unconscious elements)
- Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)
- Community Mental Health Centers (CMHC)
- Behavioral Health Integration (BHI) services
- Inpatient Psychiatric Facility (IPF) services
- Medical records requirements
- Coverage period
- Same day billing guidelines
Do you know of any support groups for depression in the Torrance, CA area?
Try these links:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/groups/depression/ca/torrance
https://www.meetup.com/topics/depression-support-group/us/ca/torrance/
https://www.dbsasouthbay.org/
https://namisouthbay.com/programs/support-groups/
https://adaa.org/supportgroups
http://www.dbsatoday.com/dbsa_ca_groups.htm#Torrance
How much does Medicare actually pay a therapist to see you?
Medicare Payments for Part B Mental Health Services
Physician Fee Schedule
Provider must take assignment See this link also for definitions of Par, Non Par & Limiting Charge
Medicare Provider Finder
45-minute psychotherapy session (the most common mental health service) Medicare pays just $84.74 psychologists are leaving Medicare, reducing their Medicare patient loads, and stop taking new Medicare patients. APA Services.org
Medicare Physician Fee Schedule 1.1.2019 Los Angeles Are 18
90834 Individual psychotherapy, 45 minutes
# -These amounts apply when service is performed in a facility setting
Training Code Manual