A Quick Primer on Health Insurance for Mental Health Care

When you try to access mental health care for yourself, your children, and your family, chances are, you’ll bump into issues related to health insurance. In this article, you’ll learn a quick overview of key terms related to health insurance, and tips for navigating health insurance questions for mental health care.

We’ll keep this snappy! Let’s jump in:

Health Insurance Key Terms

Here are some of the most important terms you’re likely to see:

Health Insurance for Mental Health Care

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, large health insurance providers are required to offer equal coverage for mental health care. In general terms, this is great news! After all, there’s no health without mental health.

However, the reality of mental health coverage varies widely. For one, lots of mental health providers don’t accept insurance - period. For another, not all employees are required to include mental health coverage in the employer-subsidized plans. Lastly, child mental health isn’t always covered, even when you have a plan that does cover adult mental health.

Keep in mind that virtual mental health care and therapy solutions like Little Otter can be significantly more affordable than traditional in-person care. Learn more about our pricing on our FAQ page.

Additional FAQs about Health Insurance and Little Otter Today

If you’re currently a Little Otter family, or interested in becoming one, you may have questions about using insurance with Little Otter. 

For Kaiser Permanente customers, we are an in-network provider. You will need to get local clinic pre-authorization first (Kaiser Mental Health Services). You will need to be assessed by your clinic, and you should let your clinic know that you want to receive services from Little Otter. An authorization will then be generated to you and to Little Otter.

For others, we are out-of-network and claims will need to be submitted to an individual's insurance provider to receive reimbursement. We will provide the proper documentation (called a superbill) to be submitted to your insurance provider

Generally, plans will reimburse 40-70% of therapy and psychiatry sessions after you’ve met your deductible. That said, it will be dependent on your personal coverage. Please note that Parent Specialist services are generally not reimbursable, and medicaid plans don’t offer reimbursement for any services. 

All therapy sessions are HSA/FSA eligible. Parent specialist sessions will be contingent on an individual's insurance plan. 

One more thing to know: Little Otter recently closed a $22M Series A round of fundraising, and we’ll be using some of this capital to become an in-network provider with more insurance plans. Our goal is to make it even easier and more affordable for families to access mental health care when and where they need it.

Ready to learn more about joining Little Otter to support your family’s mental health? Explore important details about our care and our expert team, or register to join here!