Advocates for children with autism are celebrating the passage of an insurance mandate that will require some — but not most — Minnesota health plans to cover an intensive form of therapy that can cost $100,000 a year.
The mandate, which was approved by the Legislature over the weekend, is scheduled to take effect in January.
Most Minnesota health insurers have refused until now to pay for the therapy — known as early intensive behavioral intervention — because of concerns about its cost and effectiveness.
But advocates lobbied heavily to change that, with dozens of supporters in red "Autism Votes" T-shirts flooding hearings at the Capitol in recent weeks.
"It's terrific," said Eric Larsson, a Minneapolis psychologist who runs the Lovaas Institute Midwest, an autism treatment program. He called it especially good news for families who were in danger of losing coverage for their children's therapy.
In practice, the mandate will apply only to a fraction of Minnesota employers — those with 50 or more employees in state-regulated health plans.
The mandate would cover 750,000 Minnesotans, or about 14 percent of the state population, according to state estimates. But it does not apply to the vast majority of large employers, which are self-insured and exempt from state insurance regulation.
Even so, Larsson says that the mandate will start "chipping away at the iceberg," and that many other groups are likely to start covering it voluntarily.
