An Open Letter to DOL: Our Recommendations for Mental Health Parity

November 23, 2022 by Joy Burkhard, MBA in POLICY

In September 2022, the Department of Labor hosted a roundtable discussion on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). The MHPAEA “was enacted in 2008 and requires insurance coverage for mental health conditions, including substance use disorders, to be no more restrictive than insurance coverage for other medical conditions.” 2020 Mom attended this discussion and submitted the following letter outlining the barriers to care and considerations for mental health parity.

The New USPSTF Recommendation: Prevention of Maternal Depression

February 25, 2019 by joy Burkhard in POLICY

We had the opportunity to pull leaders in the field together to review the draft USPSTF recommendation. To learn what was discussed read more here.

It has now become more well known that maternal mental health disorders are the most common complication of pregnancy and childbirth.

In 2017, after the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) overturned its position to recommend screening for maternal depression, the United States Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) changed its position to now recommend maternal depression screening.
Now, in 2019, the USPSTF released one of the firsts of its kind, a recommendation for a clinical intervention to prevent a potential disorder, not just screen for it retrospectively. The disorder? Maternal depression. The recommendation was published in on the USPSTF website and in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Network.