Common sense change at no cost.
Commercial Insurance Panel Parity
In 2022, Governor Hochul took a bold step and signed a bipartisan bill (A1171A) mandating that commercial insurers cover psychotherapy provided by all psychotherapists licensed by the NYS Office of Professions. However, she removed Licensed Creative Arts Therapists in an last minute signing statement.
This last minute change created an situation where New Yorkers who choose to see an LCAT go into each therapy session unsure of whether it will be covered. Hundreds of patients have lost access to their therapist due to job or coverage changes or insurance companies suddenly deciding to stop covering LCATs with no notice. Countless others languish on waitlists or choose to pay out of pocket for covered services.
LCATs are licensed psychotherapists who utilize the same billing codes as all other mental health clinicians in New York. Including LCATs in commercial insurance mandates will create no new services or costs, but will give thousands more therapists the ability to accept insurance.
Medicaid Provider List
Licensed Creative Arts Therapists often serve the highest need patients in inpatient and forensic settings due to their unique skills. These patients either won’t engage in or don’t respond to traditional talk therapy, but will engage in music, art, movement or drama. However, when these patients leave acute care, they lose access to the therapy that helped them get well.
LCATs are also adept at crossing cultural and intellectual barriers where words can struggle. As a result, psychotherapy provided by LCATs is uniquely well-suited for the needs of kids and teens, immigrant, LGBTQ+, non-verbal, intellectually disabled or elderly patients, who often rely on Medicaid to access treatment.
Adding LCATs to the Medicaid provider list addresses systemic inequities without adding onerous costs and creates no new services that might trigger ACA mandates.
Diagnostic Privilege
Licensed Creative Arts Therapists are the only Article 163 licensed professionals who cannot obtain privileges to diagnose mental illnesses, despite training in DSM V and ICD-10 diagnoses being mandatory coursework in graduate programs and continuing education. This oversight leaves LCATs in a grey area where they are licensed to treat mental illnesses they cannot diagnose.
Including LCATs in the current framework for earning diagnostic privilege creates no new costs and grants no new privileges without the licensee going through the same training process as all other Article 163 licensed mental health clinicians. However, it reduces costs and administrative burdens for patients.