Medicare and mental health servies

Beginning on January 1, Medicare beneficiaries will have access to more varied types of mental health services. At that time, mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists will become eligible to accept Medicare payments, joining the limited number of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who have been serving the Medicare population as part of the first expansion of Medicare-eligible mental health providers since 1989. With Medicare planning to pay its new provider types 75 percent of what it pays psychologists, it is not clear how many of those new providers will be interested in enrolling as eligible Medicare providers.  [...]