As mental health gains greater acceptance in today’s society, more and more people are thankfully getting the help they need—and insurance providers are meeting this demand with an ever-expanding range of therapies covered by their plans.
Traditional mental health options rely on psychotherapy and psychiatric medication. Two prevalent examples of this are in the fields of depression and OCD, with psychiatrists opting for antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to enhance the neurotransmitter’s effect on a person’s well-being. However, since a great many patients battling either disorder are found to be resistant to such medications or experience severe side effects, more and more additional treatments are now being considered.
With medications not always proving effective, and routes such as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) at times causing substantial side effects, insurance providers are looking to strike a balance between cost-effective treatment options, and avoiding treatments that relieve symptoms but also cause their own significant side effects. Enter transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS: with its noninvasive, FDA-cleared treatments, TMS is being seen as part of a new wave of therapies for medication-resistant patients searching for a path that works for them.
The Deep TMS™ treatment offered by BrainsWay is at the forefront of TMS technology, offering patients treatment for mental health illnesses by focusing on brain structures associated with the conditions they are working to overcome.
TMS is covered by insurance providers differently around the world, but has strong acceptance for treating major depressive disorder (MDD), which in the U.S. has been FDA cleared since 2013. In more recent developments, Deep TMS was FDA-cleared to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in 2018, and smoking cessation in 2020.
Where covered by insurance, patients will typically incur the co-pay per treatment session dictated by their insurance plan. Where not covered by insurance, patients should speak with their mental health provider regarding payment options, or in some cases opportunities to create single case agreements with their insurance company to cover the treatment cost.
BrainsWay’s Deep TMS treatment is also covered throughout Europe and other regions, as more and more insurance providers offer different coverage and copayment plans to suit their clients’ needs.
Deep TMS has never been more widely accepted—and readily available—for those who might benefit from it.
