Benefit limits in managed behavioral health care: Do they matter?

More than half of Americans with insurance coverage for mental health servi ces are enrolled in plans that carve out behavioral health care services wi th a vendor specializing in the management of these services. However utili zation management has not taken the place of benefit limitations. Do benefi t limits matter? This article reports the percentage of enrollees in manage d behavioral health care carve-out plans that encounter benefit limits. Est imates are provided on the impact and savings of imposing benefit limits an enrollees in unrestricted plans. Casts to eliminate benefit limits are est imated to be very small. This study finds that benefit limits do matter but only to a very small number of plan enrollees. Furthermore, the results of this study show that for inpatient limits, children are especially vulnera ble. These issues have important implications for discussions about the imp act of managed care in mental health and for discussions concerning parity legislation.