Three Mississippi Insurers Voluntarily End Age Caps For ABA Treatment In Commercial Plans

Three Mississippi health insurers—Blue Cross BlueShield of Mississippi, UnitedHealthcare of Mississippi, and Ambetter of Magnolia, Inc.— voluntarily eliminated age caps for covering applied behavior analysis (ABA). In 2016, the state implemented an autism insurance mandate that requires commercial health plans to cover insurers to provide coverage for the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of autism spectrum disorder for children through age eight. However, the law allows health plans to continue coverage beyond age eight for a child with an ongoing treatment plan, for whom ABA is determined to be medically necessary.  Across all three insurers, about 75,000 youth with . . .