Mental health care doesn't meet standards, study finds

Less than 15 percent of patients treated for three common mental illnesses received adequate care, according to a Harvard Medical School study. A key factor to obtaining acceptable mental health care was insurance coverage for mental health visits. Patients lacking such coverage were only 24 to 36 percent as likely as those with coverage to receive adequate care. Furthermore, the study found that of the individuals who obtained care for any of these three mental illnesses, African Americans were significantly less likely to receive adequate care. Compared to whites, African Americans were only 10 percent as likely to receive care in accordance with accepted guidelines from either general physicians or mental health specialists, adding mental health to the growing list of medical fields with detected racial differences in the quality and form of care delivered.