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Behavioral health parity reporting bill draws support from providers, concern from insurers over confidentiality and frequency
Summary
Senate Bill 824 would restore yearly quantitative reporting by health insurers on behavioral health parity metrics; providers and advocates urged reinstatement while insurers urged stronger confidentiality protections and suggested a longer reporting cycle.
Senate Bill 824, considered April 3 by the Senate Committee on Health Care, would restore quantitative reporting requirements that previously accompanied behavioral health parity implementation under House Bill 3046 (2021).
Jesse O’Brien, policy manager with the Division of Financial Regulation at the Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS), told the committee the bill’s dash-1 amendment would bring back data elements that had been sunsetted this year. The department said those quantitative data — including counts of denials, appeals and reimbursement metrics — are useful for tracking trends and disparities and that the reporting has informed previous annual DCBS parity reports.
“Without the data, the annual reports will be much less informative,” O’Brien said, and the department indicated it would not disclose reported information except in aggregated, de-identified form unless otherwise required; DCBS also requested statutory language clarifying treatment of trade-secret data.
Representatives of provider groups and reproductive- and behavioral-health advocates supported reinstating the reporting. JL Wilson of the Oregon Independent Mental Health Professionals said the reports shed light on nonquantitative treatment limits that affect access to care and that reinstating the data elements would restore oversight capacity established by 2021 law.
Insurers expressed concern. Rick Blackwell, director of Oregon government relations for PacificSource, urged extending the reporting period to two years to reduce administrative burden and requested legislative clarification that proprietary submissions be treated as confidential trade secrets. Mary Ann Cooper of Regions Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oregon echoed that request and said the department’s summary reports should remain aggregated and de-identified.
Several committee members said they supported the concept of restoring the data but noted practical issues such as carriers’ trade-secret concerns and the work required to produce quantitative submissions. DCBS said it would propose clarifying language on confidentiality and that stakeholders had asked for the reinstatement because the quantitative data had been useful in prior years.
The public hearing portion of the record did not include a committee vote; the transcript shows extensive testimony but no final committee action on SB 824 during this session.
