New Mexico Legislation

Amends the NRS 13-7  and Chapters 27 and 59a to prohibit the policies and terms of group health plans, medical assistance plans, and individual health plans from discriminating against professional art therapist.

 This bill tried to change the parity sections of the state insurance law in several ways:

• Plans must cover substance use disorder services the same as they cover mental health services
• Extends parity sections of the law to individual plans
• Clarifies that these sections of the law apply to residential treatment
• Defines behavioral health coverage as “all medically necessary mental health and substance use disorder treatment”
• Eliminates language allowing large employer fully-insured plans and small employer fully-insured plans to to reduce their coverage of behavioral health services if the cost of premiums rises by certain percentages
• Repeals the sections of the law about coverage for alcohol dependency (this coverage would now be part of coverage for substance use disorders listed above)

This bill tried to change the section of the state insurance law that allows people covered by individual plans to choose any hospital and certain health providers regardless of whether it is in-network or out-of-network. This bill would have changed the law by adding the following behavioral health professionals to the list of accepted health providers:

• Licensed professional clinical mental health counselor
• Licensed alcohol and drug abuse counselor
• Licensed marriage and family therapist
• Licensed professional art therapist
• Licensed mental health counselor
• Licensed substance abuse associate
• Licensed associate marriage and family therapist

Among many other things, this bill tried to change the sections of the state insurance law about autism coverage. It would have changed these sections so that autism spectrum disorder is defined according to the “current” edition of the DSM rather than the fourth edition.

This bill tried to change the state insurance law about health maintenance organizations so that behavioral health conditions are considered medically necessary services. It also would have required individual plans to cover behavioral health services.
This bill also tried to change the sections of the state insurance law about autism coverage for commercial plans. These plans would no longer be allowed to use annual maximums and lifetime maximums.

This bill tried to change the section of the state insurance law that allows people covered by individual plans to choose any hospital and certain health providers regardless of whether it is in-network or out-of-network. This bill would have changed the law by adding licensed mental health counselors and therapists to the list of accepted health providers.
This bill is similar to bills introduced in other legislative sessions. You can find those bills on this page as well.

This bill tried to change state law so that autism coverage would be available for public employees. The sections of the law about autism coverage are summarized at the bottom of this page. This bill is identical to HB 22 that was signed into law in 2013.

This bill tried to change the section of the state insurance law that allows people covered by individual plans to choose any hospital and certain health providers regardless of whether it is in-network or out-of-network. This bill would have changed the law by adding licensed mental health counselors and therapists to the list of accepted health providers.
This bill is similar to bills introduced in other legislative sessions. You can find those bills on this page as well.

This bill tried to add sections to the state law about autism coverage and add new sections about parity . The autism sections were different from what is currently in the law in that it only extended coverage through age 18 but set the annual maximum at $50,000 and had no lifetime maximum . The sections about parity are different than what is currently in the law in the following ways:

• Does not allow prior authorization for inpatient care and outpatient care
• Does not allow plans to restrict care to services that are medically necessary
• Contains more detailed descriptions of inpatient care, outpatient care, and licensed mental health providers

This bill tried to change the state insurance law to add sections about autism coverage. This bill is very similar to the bill about autism coverage from the same legislative session that was signed into law (summarized above). This bill is different than that bill in that it requires insurance plans to cover 30-month well-child screening that includes screening for autism spectrum disorder.

This bill tried to change the public assistance law so that the New Mexico Department of Human Services would be required to apply to the Federal Government for approval to provide adaptive skill building services for children 5 years and younger who have autism.

This bill tried to appropriate $3 million for autism services. The monies were to be distributed as follows:

• $1 million for expanded diagnostic services
• $1 million for intensive interventions and adaptive skill building services
• $500,000 for provider training
• $500,000 for teacher training