Helping Clinicians and Patients Overcome Insurance Barriers to Mental Health Care

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CONFERENCE REPORTER

A new nonprofit organization is supporting clinicians and patients in their fight for mental health coverage.

In an interview with Psychiatric Times at the 2025 American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, Joe Feldman, president of Cover My Mental Health, referred to the current crisis in mental health and the frustrating and sometimes seemingly futile attempts to ensure appropriate evidence-based mental health care for patients is covered by insurance. As a result of his interest in advocacy, he founded Cover My Mental Health to address insurance-related barriers to mental health care.^1,2 Feldman launched the organization in early 2024 to provide sustained support through practical tools and legislative engagement.

At its core, Cover My Mental Health offers free resources to help clinicians navigate insurance denials, including customizable medical necessity letter templates. “The idea of that letter is to establish that the right way to make a decision about care is to focus on the clinician's judgment as documented in one of these letters,” Feldman told Psychiatric Times.

The organization is already proving to be successful in its goals. Feldman shared several anecdotes. For example, he said there was a patient with post-accident anxiety whose insurance initially refused to cover mental health services. After her clinician used a letter template from Cover My Mental Health, the insurance company agreed to support the patient with both the physical and psychiatric care she needed, he told Psychiatric Times.

To support its mission, Cover My Mental Health has leveraged a board of directors that represents key aspects of mental health and patient advocacy.¹ Among the professionals is psychiatrist Eric M. Plakun, MD, DLFAPA, FACPsych, senior consultant of the Erikson Institute for Education, Research, and Advocacy of the Austen Riggs Center. Lisa Gomez, Founding former Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefits Security, US Department of Labor (leading the Employee Benefits Security Administration) and Sally Benjamin Young, who brings experience with pharmaceutical industry, also are members.

Feldman said the organization can also send a representative to grand rounds or host webinars for clinician groups that want to support their clinicians. “We also provide a series of resources on a regular basis that could be included in newsletters, so sort of cut and paste stories suitable for sharing the resources,” Feldman added.

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References

1. Cover My Mental Health. Accessed May 19, 2025. https://covermymentalhealth.org/about/

2. Goderez BI. Prior Authorization Blues. Psychiatric Times. 2023:40(3).