Expenditures for Treatment of Mental Health Disorders among Children, Ages 5-17, 2009-2011: Estimates for the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population

Mental health disorders affect a person's emotional, social, and behavioral well-being. As a result of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, mental health disorder services are currently part of the essential benefits package, a set of health care service categories that must be covered by certain plans, including all insurance policies that are offered through State-based Exchanges, and Medicaid. This Statistical Brief presents estimates based on the Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-HC) on the use of and expenditures for all medical care, which includes inpatient stays, ambulatory care (office-based provider and hospital outpatient visits), and prescribed medicines to treat mental health disorders among school-age children in the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population. Average annual estimates for 2009-2011 are shown by type of service and source of payment. Expenditures for pooled years are expressed in constant dollars by inflating those for 2009-10 to 2011 U.S. dollars using the Personal Health Care Expenditure (PHCE) price index component of the National Health Expenditure Accounts (http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/about_meps/Price_Index.shtml). All differences between estimates noted in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level or better.