Insurance coverage and affordability of mental healthcare for Ohio children and youth

Many young Ohioans experience mental health challenges, and families often have difficulty navigating the mental healthcare and insurance systems. For some families in Ohio, having a health insurance plan is not enough to overcome barriers to access. This brief examines health insurance coverage, cost of care and how they influence access to mental health services.

Click here for a 4-page executive summary

3 key findings for policymakers

• Mental healthcare can be expensive. Costs can accumulate even if a family has insurance due to coverage gaps, high patient cost responsibilities and the need to see a provider who is not in their health plan’s network.
• Mental health provider shortages across Ohio can be worsened due to insurance practices such as low provider reimbursement rates, administrative burdens and insurers not covering certain mental health provider types.
• Children in need of mental health treatment have access to different services and supports based on insurance type. Some children with commercial insurance do not have access to certain mental health services or models of care.

Mental health parity explainer

HPIO has released a 4-page policy explainer on federal and state mental health parity laws from 1990 to 2025. 

The primary focus of mental health parity is to ensure that insurance plans do not make access to mental health and substance use disorder (collectively known as behavioral health) treatment more cost-prohibitive or restrictive than access to medical or surgical care. There is strong evidence that mental health benefits legislation, which includes parity requirements, increases access to mental health services and reduces patient costs. Evidence on cost impacts to insurers is mixed. Most research has found that parity requirements do not significantly increase annual costs per health plan member overall, although several studies have found modest increases.

HPIO’s child and youth mental health policy brief series

This data brief is the final in a series of four HPIO publications on child and youth mental health. Other briefs addressed:

• Brief 1: Mental health conditions among Ohio children and youth
• Brief 2: Factors contributing to child and youth mental health struggles
• Brief 3: Access to mental health for Ohio children and youth

Support for this project was provided by the Harmony Project, the Woodruff Foundation and HPIO’s core funders.