---
type: source
title: "2025 MHPAEA Report to Congress: Enforcement Structural Limits — Payers Build Medical Networks But Not Mental Health Networks"
author: "DOL / HHS / Treasury + EBSA OIG"
url: https://beta.dol.gov/research-data/report/2025-mhpaea-report-congress
date: 2026-03-03
domain: health
secondary_domains: []
format: report
status: unprocessed
priority: high
tags: [mental-health, MHPAEA, parity, enforcement, supply-gap, workforce, network-adequacy]
intake_tier: research-task
---

## Content

The 4th annual MHPAEA (Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act) Report to Congress was published March 3, 2026, covering August 2023 – July 2025 enforcement period.

**Key compliance gaps identified:**

**Network adequacy — the structural mechanism:**
- EBSA found multiple instances where plan sponsors/issuers "actively increased reimbursement rates for certain M/S [medical/surgical] providers as a strategy to attract and retain service providers where they found insufficiency in the network"
- **But the same methodologies were NOT utilized to attract and retain MH/SUD providers, even where gaps were identified in MH/SUD provider networks**
- This is the structural mechanism: payers are WILLING to raise reimbursement to fix medical network gaps but NOT applying the same approach for mental health gaps

**NQTL Documentation Deficiencies:**
- Plans and issuers failed to provide adequate comparative analyses demonstrating Nonquantitative Treatment Limitation (NQTL) compliance
- Prior authorization for MH/SUD more stringent than equivalent medical/surgical services

**Key exclusions found:**
- Applied behavior analysis (ABA) therapy for autism spectrum disorder
- Nutritional counseling for eating disorders
- Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder

**Enforcement posture shift:**
- 2025 Report shows Trump administration is "not as active as they previously were in MHPAEA enforcement" at federal level
- State enforcement is escalating as federal action contracts
- EBSA OIG report: "EBSA Faced Challenges Enforcing Compliance with Mental Health Parity" — enforcement itself is undermined structurally

**The compliance vs. access gap:**
- Strong enforcement (2024 rule: new NQTL comparative analysis requirements, network adequacy standards, ABA/MAT exclusion coverage mandates)
- But: covering more benefit types doesn't create more providers
- DOL enforcement actions targeting network adequacy — "dozens" of actions, $100K-$2M+ penalties
- Yet the supply shortage (too few therapists, reimbursement too low) persists regardless of compliance mandates

**Independent academic analysis (Tandfonline 2025):**
- "Can Mental Health Parity Be an Effective Tool to Challenge Inadequate Networks and Low Reimbursement Rates?"
- Asks explicitly whether parity enforcement can address the structural supply constraint

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** Tests whether MHPAEA enforcement can close the "mental health supply gap widening" claim in the KB. The answer emerging from this report: enforcement fixes coverage mandates but doesn't create providers. The structural barrier (workforce shortage + reimbursement rates) persists independently of compliance mandates.

**What surprised me:** The specific mechanism revealed by the EBSA report — payers are ACTIVELY raising reimbursement for medical networks but DELIBERATELY not applying the same methodology to mental health networks. This isn't ignorance or oversight — it's a documented structural choice that enforcement must directly address. This is the clearest articulation I've seen of why parity doesn't produce access.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Evidence that the 2024-2025 enforcement push has produced measurable access improvements (reduced wait times, more in-network providers). The report focuses on compliance requirements and enforcement actions, not access outcome metrics. Absence of outcome data is informative.

**KB connections:**
- Directly connects to [[the mental health supply gap is widening not closing because demand outpaces workforce growth and technology primarily serves the already-served rather than expanding access]]
- Adds new precision: the gap mechanism isn't just workforce shortage — it's also payers' differential treatment of MH vs medical reimbursement rates (documented, not inferred)
- Connects to Belief 2 (80-90% of outcomes non-clinical): mental health is the most significant underfunded non-clinical determinant

**Extraction hints:**
- CLAIM CANDIDATE: "Mental health parity enforcement closes coverage gaps but cannot close the access gap because payers demonstrate structural differential treatment of mental health vs. medical reimbursement rates — paying more to attract medical providers but not applying the same methodology to mental health provider networks"
- ENRICHMENT: The existing mental health supply gap is widening not closing... claim can be enriched with this mechanism: it's not just demand > supply — it's that payers are documented as actively NOT fixing the supply incentives
- NOTE: The enforcement posture shift under Trump administration (less active federal, escalating state) is a policy fragility point.

**Context:** 4th annual report, most recent available. Published March 2026. DOL OIG separate report on enforcement challenges. EBSA covers employer-sponsored plans; CMS covers Medicaid/ACA.

## Curator Notes

PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[the mental health supply gap is widening not closing because demand outpaces workforce growth and technology primarily serves the already-served rather than expanding access]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Documents the structural mechanism explaining WHY enforcement doesn't close the access gap — payers differentially treat MH vs medical reimbursement. Strongest single piece of evidence for the structural mechanism underlying the supply gap claim.
EXTRACTION HINT: The key extraction is the MECHANISM, not just the compliance failures. "Payers raise medical reimbursement to fix network gaps but don't apply same methodology to mental health" — this is a claim about structural incentive differential, not just regulatory non-compliance.
