Advocacy
Voice.
Integration of behavioral and physical health is critical to treat the whole person and enhance a practitioner’s ability to effectively prevent fragmentation between behavioral health and medical care, and improve overall quality of care.
The Association for Behavioral Health and Wellness member companies bring substantial expertise and valuable capabilities to the current focus on integration, including robust knowledge and experience with mental health and substance use disorders; a person-centered focus on recovery; strong informatics and data analytics; and familiarity with preventative and collaborative models of care.
ABHW supports policies and regulations to ensure member companies can continue to increase quality, manage costs, and promote wellness for the 200 million people served by our members. View our policy priorities.
ABHW member companies are employing innovative approaches and effective use of technology and clinical decision guidelines to ensure that patients receive the care they need when they need it, achieving better health outcomes while protecting the system from waste, fraud and abuse. Health plans are seeing to it that dollars invested in behavioral health care and substance use disorder are having an optimal impact on population health.
Telehealth and Health Information Technology (HIT)
Expanding access to telehealth services is a priority for ABHW and its member companies.
Telehealth services have been proven to drive important advancements for patients, expand access to care, improve health outcomes, reduce the inappropriate use of psychotropic medications, overcome the stigma barrier, and cut costs. Given that approximately 25 percent of the adult population in the United States is reported to have a mental illness, and the fact that there is a growing shortage of behavioral health providers to respond to this significant need for service, the expansion of telehealth is critical.
The rising opioid crisis in our country provides even more of a reason to grant appropriate access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment. Now more than ever, the U.S. government is looking to expand and improve access to telebehavioral health services. The CONNECT for Health Act is just one example of federal bills that ABHW advocates for that are intended to promote access to telehealth services to provide evidence-based quality health care to our most vulnerable citizens.
ABHW supports the use of telebehavioral health where appropriate and advocates for the lifting of barriers that prevent its advancement and use.
- Issue Brief:
Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders
Our nation is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic.
More people died from drug overdoses in 2015 than in any year on record, and the majority of drug overdose deaths (more than 6 out of ten) involved an opioid. BHOs play an important role in access to and delivery of treatment for opioid dependence.
ABHW works with Congress, federal agencies, the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, and other organizations to enact and improve policies that with help address the opioid epidemic.
Privacy and Confidentiality
The Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Records regulations, 42 CFR Part 2, was designed to facilitate health integration and information exchange within new health care models while continuing to protect the privacy and confidentiality of patients seeking treatment for substance use disorders.
ABHW members successfully advocated for aligning substance use disorder privacy protections with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for treatment, payment, and health care operations in an effort to provide patients with safe, coordinated, and informed care.
ABHW is the founder and chair of the Partnership to Amend 42 CFR Part 2 (Partnership). The Partnership is a coalition of 50 organizations representing stakeholders from across the health care spectrum and successfully aligned Part 2 with the treatment, payment, and health care operations language in HIPAA to ensure appropriate access to patient information essential for providing whole-person care. Read more about the Partnership here.
Medicare and Medicaid
ABHW supports policies that ensure access to medically necessary, evidence-based behavioral treatment for the Medicaid population.
Medicaid accounts for about 26 percent of behavioral health spending and is the largest source of funding for the country’s public mental health system. One in five individuals out of Medicaid’s nearly 70 million patients have a MH/SUD diagnosis. The Medicaid expansion program has provided coverage to persons with MH/SUD who might not otherwise had access to care; and it has led to significant increases in coverage and access to services, better care and state savings.
Parity
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA) requires group health plans and insurers that offer mental health and substance use disorder benefits to provide coverage that is comparable to coverage for general medical and surgical care.
ABHW member companies have long believed that it is important for financial and treatment coverage in health insurance policies to be equal between behavioral and physical medical health care.
ABHW was a strong advocate for passage of MHPAEA and remains critically involved with its member companies and regulators in the implementation of this landmark legislation.
- Issue Brief:
Health Care Reform
Behavioral health is an integral part of whole health and a critical part of the costs of the health care system.
In January 2017, approximately 1.8 million of the 21 million people covered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were receiving mental health (MH) services and subsidies; approximately 1.25 million people with serious mental disorders, and about 2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder (SUD).
ABHW supports the following provisions that ensure persons with MH/SUD maintain comprehensive coverage for medically necessary services: 1) Continuing coverage, including comprehensive behavioral health benefits, for individuals currently eligible for Medicaid and Medicaid expansion; 2) Inclusion of MH/SUD as a covered benefit; and 3) Requiring financial and treatment limits to be comparable between behavioral and physical health.
- Issue Brief:
Comment Letters
- December 5, 2025 ABHW Submits Comments on the Impending Lapse of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Telemedicine Flexibility that has Allowed Patients to Safely Access Needed Medications.
- December 5, 2025 ABHW Submits Recommendations to the U.S. Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Treasury (collectively, ‘the Departments’) on Ways to Reform the Mental Health (MH) and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Parity Compliance Process.
- December 3, 2025 ABHW Submits a Statement on the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance’s hearing, “The Rising Cost of Health Care: Considering Meaningful Solutions for All Americans.”
- December 1, 2025 ABHW Submits Request For Public Comment: Measuring and Evaluating Artificial Intelligence-enabled Medical Device Performance in the Real-World, FDA-2025-N-4203.
- November 10, 2025 ABHW Submits Recommendations to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for Behavioral Health Priorities within the Medicaid Rural Health Transformation Fund.
- November 10, 2025 ABHW Submits Recommendations to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the Community Engagement Requirements of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025.
- September 15, 2025 ABHW Submits Comments on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM or proposed rule) for the Medicare and Medicaid Programs: Calendar Year 2026 (CY 26) Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment Systems (OPPS).
- September 12, 2025 ABHW Submits Comments on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM or proposed rule) for the Medicare and Medicaid Programs: Calendar Year 2026 Payment Policies Under the Physician Fee Schedule (CY26 PFS or PFS) and Other Changes to Part B Payment and Coverage Policies.
- July 14, 2025 ABHW Comments on the Request for Information (RFI): Ensuring Lawful Regulation and Unleashing Innovation To Make America Healthy Again, AHRQ-2025-0001.
- July 2, 2025 ABHW Submits Comments on AB 669.
- June 20, 2025 ABHW Provides Input on the President’s 2026 National Drug Control Strategy.
- June 16, 2025 ABHW Responds to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ASTP/ONC) Health Technology Ecosystem Request for Information (RFI).
- June 10, 2025 ABHW Submits Comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to Expand Access to Behavioral Health Services in Medicare Programs.
- May 27, 2025 ABHW Comments on the Elimination of Anticompetitive Regulations in Behavioral Health; Docket No. ATR-2025-0001.
- April 3, 2025 ABHW Comments on Potential Privacy Issues Involved in Georouting Text to 988 under the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Implementation of the National Suicide Hotline Act of 2018, Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPR).
Group Letters and Statements
- December 5, 2025 ABHW Joins the Alliance for Connected Care and 180+ Organizations Urging DEA and OMB to Extend Telemedicine Flexibility that Has Allowed Patients to Safely Access Needed Medications.
- September 23, 2025 The Mental Health Liaison Group, of Which ABHW is a Member, Urges Congress to Pass an Extension of the Enhanced Health Care Tax Credits as Part of the Government Funding that Expires on September 30, 2025.
- September 23, 2025 The Mental Health Liaison Group, of Which ABHW is a Member, Urges Congress to Establish a 2-Year or Permanent Extension of Medicare Telehealth Flexibilities.