Medical Expense✓ Verified · outline & fact-checked · Sep 2026Difficulty 1/5
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act generally requires group health plans that offer mental health benefits to:
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Answer & full 3-part explanation (select an option above, or peek)
Why A is correct
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) requires that, when a plan offers mental health and substance use disorder benefits, the financial requirements (deductibles, copays, coinsurance) and treatment limitations (visit or day limits) applied to them must be no more restrictive than those applied to substantially all medical and surgical benefits. The law targets the historical practice of imposing higher cost-sharing and tighter limits on mental health care. It is a key federal influence on group health plan design.
Why the other options are wrong
- B) Parity governs the terms of mental health benefits that are offered; it does not require exclusion, and the law encourages equivalent treatment of these benefits. The law governs how offered benefits are designed.
- C) Higher copays for mental health treatment would violate the parity requirement that cost-sharing be no more restrictive than for medical care. The parity rule demands equal cost-sharing for mental and physical care.
- D) Restricting mental health benefits to emergencies would impose a treatment limit far more restrictive than medical/surgical limits, breaching parity. An emergency-only treatment limit would directly violate the parity standard.
Memory hook
Mental health parity = the same copays, the same limits. Mind care gets billed exactly like body care.