Will Insurance Cover Addiction if it's Not a Disease?
Posted on July 24, 2013
Will insurance cover addiction if it's not a disease? Some highly vocal addiction recovery advocacy groups claim that addictions, or at least some addictions, are diseases. These groups argue that insurance coverage for addiction treatment is crucial for recovery, and that insurers will not pay for treatment if addiction is not understood as a disease. Therefore, they say, we need to keep insisting that addiction is a disease, and keep insisting that our insurers cover addiction treatment.
Defining Diseases and Conditions However, insurers already pay for many conditions that are not diseases. For instance, broken bones, pregnancies, and the repair of congenital defects are not normally called diseases, but these conditions are covered by most insurance plans. The term that is relev...
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