/>iThe June 2025 issue of Greenberg Traurig’s quarterly Behavioral Health Law Ledger explores two behavioral health legal developments: the Trump administration’s pause on enforcement of a Final Rule intended to strengthen equitable coverage between mental and physical health benefits; and a partnership between the NIH and CMS aimed at researching and providing data on the root causes of autism.
Trump Administration Pauses Enforcement of Mental Health Parity Final Rule
As previously reported in the Ledger, in September 2024, the U.S. Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services (the Departments) sought to strengthen the requirements under the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA), which mandates equitable coverage by health benefit plans between mental health benefits and physical health benefits. The Departments co-released the Final Rule on the Requirements Related to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (the Final Rule), which required health plans and health insurers to reevaluate the impact of nonquantitative treatment limitations (NQTLs) on access to mental health or substance use disorder (MH/SUD) benefits relative to comparable availabilities of medical and surgical benefits, effective Jan. 1, 2025. NQTLs are non-numerical limits of benefits and include mechanisms such as medical management techniques and prior authorization requirements. On an operational level, the Final Rule intended to close loopholes in MHPAEA that health insurers and health plans have used to deny patients’ covered MH/SUD treatments.
However, the Trump administration recently stated in a court filing that it does not intend to enforce a key regulation on mental health parity while it considers next steps, which could include modifying or rescinding the Final Rule in its entirety.
In January 2025, the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), an organization that represents large employers that provide benefits, including health plan benefits, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Departments challenging the Final Rule on several grounds, including that the Departments exceeded their authorities in enacting the Final Rule, and asserting that the Final Rule’s provisions are arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.
Rather than defend the Department’s rulemaking authority, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a Motion for Abeyance, seeking to stay the litigation while the Departments “reconsider the [Final] Rule at issue in this litigation, including whether to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking rescinding or modifying the regulation.” The DOJ’s motion goes on to state that “the Departments do not intend to enforce parts of the [Final Rule],” thereby deeming abeyance of the litigation pending the Department’s reconsideration process appropriate. The court granted the DOJ’s motion and ordered the parties to the litigation to file a joint status report Aug. 7, 2025, and every 90 days thereafter to report on the Department’s reconsideration of the Final Rule at issue in the pending litigation. The Departments subsequently issued a non-enforcement policy statement May 15, 2025, further stating that “[t]he Departments will not enforce the 2024 Final Rule or otherwise pursue enforcement actions, based on a failure to comply that occurs prior to a final decision in the [ERIC] litigation, plus an additional 18 months.”
CMS Announces Data Bank Dedicated to Researching Autism
On May 7, 2025, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to build a data bank aimed at researching the root causes of autism and providing public transparency.
Although much of the specifics are yet to be unveiled, this pilot research program will begin with CMS and NIH establishing a data use agreement under CMS’ Research Data Disclosure Program focused on Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses. Researchers then intend to study ASD diagnosis trends over time, as well as studying health outcomes connected to specific medical and behavioral intervention strategies and techniques. The database will also be used to study access to care and care disparities demographically and geographically, as well as ASD’s “economic burden on families and health care systems.”
NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in the announcement of the initiative that “[l]inking CMS claims data with a secure real-world NIH data platform…will unlock landmark research into the complex factors that drive autism and chronic disease—ultimately delivering superior health outcomes to the Americans we serve.” CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz added, “This joint effort aligns with our shared goal of fostering innovation to improve American’s lives while safeguarding patient privacy.”
