Give Us a Ring: Spotlight Submissions Now Open

We’re working on our next Spotlight program, and we want to hear from you!

Have you had trouble getting your mental health care covered by your insurance or health plan?

Our next program will focus on mental health parity, the national requirement for health insurers and group coverage plans to provide equal levels of benefits for mental health (including substance use) treatment as they do for other medical or surgical care.

SHARE YOUR STORY, TO SHAPE OUR STORY

• If you have had challenges getting your mental health care covered by your insurance, please let us know how you learned your plan was treating therapy differently than other care. If you have paid more for your mental health care than treating other conditions or were told you had fewer treatments covered by your plan, we want to know your story.

• If you are a provider who has had trouble getting treatment reimbursed by insurers at the same level as comparable physical care, reach out to us.

To send us a brief mobile device or computer recording for potential use in our program:

Record a short voice memo with the following information (if recording using a smartphone, please use earbuds or hold the phone up to your ear like you would on a regular phone call):

1. Name ("My name is...")

2. Location (city, state)

3. Care role or description of involvement with mental health care. Please include as many personal identifiers as you would like. (e.g. I had my first mental health crisis during the pandemic... I've been treated for major depression xx years... I'm a licensed clinical social worker... etc.)

4. Describe your insurance coverage experience receiving or delivering mental health care.

5. Let us know if you would like to remain anonymous in our program.

By October 29th, email your voice memo file to calltomind@americanpublicmedia.org with the subject line "Spotlight Voice Memo — [name, location]." 30 to 60 seconds is perfect!

You're welcome to submit multiple memos from both perspectives — patient and provider — but please submit them in separate emails and record your identification information in each recording. Our producers may follow up with you about your recording.

Thanks so much for your time!

P.S. Call to Mind is not staffed with mental health professionals and cannot respond with any care advice or services. If you or anyone you know is dealing with a well-being crisis or thinking about suicide — hold on. Free, trained help is available for you 24/7:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline operators are available to talk by calling 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).

Editor’s note: Updated to remove references to the Crisis Text Line. Reporting from Politico shows the mental health crisis organization shared conversation data with a related for-profit company. Learn more.