Insights

Washington – August 15, 2024: The 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 42 Crowell & Moring lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 29 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

Washington – August 17, 2023: The 2024 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 47 firm lawyers as "Best Lawyers" and 41 lawyers as “Ones to Watch.”

On Monday, September 8, 2024, the United States Department of the Treasury, Department of Labor, and Department of Health and Human Services (collectively, the “Tri-Agencies”) issued a final rule (“the Final Rule”) implementing new regulations applicable to nonquantitative treatment limitations (“NQTLs”) under the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (“MHPAEA”). The Final Rule codifies many of the requirements set forth in the (the “Proposed Rule”), while pulling back on some of the Tri-Agencies’ more controversial proposals. 

On January 25, 2022, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (“HHS”), and the Treasury (the “Tri-agencies”) released their 2022 annual report to Congress on the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (“MHPAEA”).

Congress added additional compliance and oversight requirements focused on nonquantitative treatment limitations (“NQTLs”) in Division BB, Title II, Section 203 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. The law formalizes the four-step NQTL compliance analysis outlined in sub-regulatory guidance, obligates health plans and health insurance issuers (“plans/issuers”) to make the compliance analysis available to state regulators, DOL, or HHS upon request, and charges DOL and HHS with conducting at least 20 reviews of such analysis each year. And the law directs the federal government to finalize interim guidance and regulations and update compliance guidance with de-identified, real-world examples of compliant and non-compliant NQTLs with sufficient detail to show whether the processes, factors, or other criteria hit or missed the mark.

Join us for this year’s Health Care Ounce of Prevention Seminar (HOOPS), a webinar series where our experienced practitioners will provide insight into a number of exciting topics. This year’s seminar will focus on topics such as Remote Health Care and Telemedicine, Mental Health Parity, Health Care Litigation, and Health Care Trends for 2022. 

As part of Crowell & Moring’s ongoing effort to keep clients informed about the most significant developments stemming from the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (“MHPAEA”), please join us on November 18th at 12PM ET for the New Regulations and Enforcement Activity for MHPAEA: What You Need to Know webinar. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (“CAA”) amended MHPAEA by adding a requirement for plans and issuers to perform and document comparative analyses of non-quantitative treatment limitation (“NQTL”) comparative analyses. Since this amendment, federal regulators have issued numerous requests for documentation to national and regional group health plan sponsors and health insurance issuers, follow-up requests, and some determinations of non-compliance. In the meantime, state departments of insurance have initiated a multitude of market conduct examinations relating to parity compliance. The federal Department of Labor continues to pursue audits and inquiries examining MHPAEA compliance, particularly with respect to NQTLs. In addition to the enforcement activities by regulators, private litigants have been actively suing plans and issuers, alleging MHPAEA violations and seeking damages. Crowell & Moring has been on the vanguard, helping health insurance issuers respond to government inquiries and defend against lawsuits.