On a strong bipartisan vote of 106-9, the Illinois House of Representatives just passed Senate Bill 1707 – the strongest mental health parity law in the nation. The bill now moves on to the Senate.

SB1707 is the result of a multi-year Kennedy Forum Illinois campaign to improve parity law enforcement so that people with mental health and addiction challenges have the treatment they need covered on an equal basis, as required by state and federal law. As part of this campaign, The Kennedy Forum Illinois convened a Illinois Parity Implementation Workgroup with nearly 30 member organizations, and spearheaded an Illinois provider survey on the frequency of mental health and addiction treatment denials with key partners.

These efforts resulted in numerous media articles on the damage that mental health and addiction coverage discrimination causes, as well as two House Mental Health Committee hearings on parity – including one on how inadequate parity compliance is helping to fuel our state’s ongoing opioid epidemic that killed 2,100 last year.

Specifically, this landmark legislation:

• Tackles the opioid crisis by expanding access to life-saving addiction treatment.

  • The bill prohibits prior authorization and step-therapy requirements for FDA-approved medications to treat substance use disorders.

  • Requires generic FDA-approved medications for substance use disorders to be on lowest-tier of prescription formularies, with branded medications on the lowest tier for branded medications.

  • Prohibits exclusions of prescription coverage and related support services for substance use disorder because they are court ordered.

  • Requires state regulators to actively ensure plan compliance with parity law utilizing information provided by plans/MCOs and through independent oversight.

• Increases transparency by requiring health plans to submit parity compliance analyses to the Illinois Dept. of Insurance and the Illinois Dept. of Healthcare and Family Services that align with The Kennedy Forum’s six-step process that shows compliance with federal parity rules and requires plans/MCOs to make parity compliance information available to DOI, HFS, and to individuals via a public website.

• Improves parity enforcement by requiring the Departments to conduct market conduct examinations/parity compliance audits and report on their enforcement activities annually to the General Assembly and requires the Illinois Auditor General to review implementation state parity law and report to the General Assembly.

• Closes a loophole in state law that allowed school district health plans to discriminate against mental health and addiction coverage.

By improving accountability and transparency, this legislation will increase parity compliance and access to needed treatment. While we still have a long way to go to end coverage discrimination, SB1707 represents a major milestone, not just in Illinois, but for the country as a whole.

Kudos to Rep. Lou Lang for his tireless leadership on mental health and addiction parity, as well as the Illinois Association for Behavioral Health for helping to advance this important legislation.