What is considered a pre-existing mental health condition?
Asked by: Crystal Ward | Last update: October 17, 2025Score: 4.1/5 (46 votes)
What are pre-existing mental health conditions?
Pre-existing mental health disorders were defined as diagnoses of mental health disorders during the 2-year period before NSCLC diagnosis (16, 18). Mental health disorder diagnoses were identified using ICD-9 or CPT codes in the MDR data.
What qualifies as a pre-existing condition?
Any condition (either physical or mental) including a disability for which medical advice, diagnosis, care, or treatment was recommended or received within the 6-month period ending on your enrollment date in a health insurance plan.
Is anxiety and depression a pre-existing condition?
Many insurance policies do not cover pre-existing conditions. This means that they will not pay out on a claim related to a pre-existing condition, including mental health problems. For example, if you have a diagnosis of depression when you apply for insurance, this would be considered a pre-existing condition.
How far back is a pre-existing condition?
A pre-existing medical condition is a disease, illness or injury for which you have received medication, advice or treatment or had any symptoms (whether the condition has been diagnosed or not) in the five years before your joining date. Health insurance doesn't usually cover 'pre-existing conditions'.
What Is a Pre-existing Condition?
How far back does pre-existing condition last?
A group health plan can count as pre-existing conditions only those conditions for which you actually received (or were recommended to receive) a diagnosis, treatment or medical advice within the 6 months immediately before you joined that plan. This period is known as the “look back” period.
What counts as a pre-existing medical condition?
You may have gone for tests, scans or other investigations before you had health insurance and only received a diagnosis later. It applies to any medical condition that you saw your doctor about the five years before the start date on your health insurance.
Is bipolar disorder a pre-existing condition?
Examples of Common Pre-Existing Conditions
Mental Health Disorders: Issues like depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder often qualify as pre-existing, affecting how care is covered under some plans.
Why is mental health not covered by insurance?
The parity law does not require insurers to provide mental health benefits—rather, the law states that if mental health benefits are offered, they can't have more restrictive requirements than those that apply to physical health benefits.
Does anxiety count as a mental health condition?
Anxiety disorders are the world's most common mental disorders, affecting 301 million people in 2019. More women are affected by anxiety disorders than men. Symptoms of anxiety often have onset during childhood or adolescence. There are highly effective treatments for anxiety disorders.
What is the waiting period for pre-existing disease?
Almost all health insurance plans cover pre-existing diseases after a waiting period of usually 2 to 3 years. This implies that any hospitalization expenses related to the declared ailments can be claimed only after 2 to 3 successful years with the insurer.
What is a pre-existing condition for disability?
A pre-existing condition means a sickness or injury for which you have received treatment within 12 months before your effective date. Any disability contributed to or caused by a pre-existing condition within the first 12 months of your effective date will not be covered.
What pre-existing conditions are not covered by life insurance?
- Anxiety and depression.
- Asthma.
- Diabetes.
- Heart disease.
- High blood pressure.
- High cholesterol.
- HIV.
- Obesity.
What determines a pre-existing condition?
A health problem, like asthma, diabetes, or cancer, you had before the date that new health coverage starts. Insurance companies can't refuse to cover treatment for your pre-existing condition or charge you more.
What is a pre-existing mental concept?
Schemas. - Preexisting mental concepts that help organize, interpret info. - Influence how we encode, make inferences about, retrieve information.
What would be considered a psychiatric condition?
Overview. Mental illness, also called mental health disorders, refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
What is the hardest mental illness to live with?
Borderline personality disorder is one of the most painful mental illnesses since individuals struggling with this disorder are constantly trying to cope with volatile and overwhelming emotions.
Why do insurance companies deny mental health claims?
Unlike physical conditions, which can be supported by diagnostic tools like MRIs or lab results, mental health issues often rely on subjective assessments and patient reports. Insurers may exploit this lack of “hard evidence” to deny claims.
Can I go to a mental hospital without insurance?
Each state has public psychiatric hospitals that provide acute (short-term) and long-term care to people without means to pay, those requiring long-term care, and forensic patients.
Is anxiety considered a pre-existing condition?
In the health insurance world, a pre-existing condition is any injury, sickness or condition that exists before the date an insurance policy takes effect. Examples include asthma, diabetes, anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and so on.
Are you born bipolar or do you become bipolar?
Bipolar disorder often runs in families, and research suggests this is mostly explained by heredity—people with certain genes are more likely to develop bipolar disorder than others. Many genes are involved, and no one gene can cause the disorder.
Can you get life insurance with a bipolar diagnosis?
If you have a mild, stable bipolar disorder, then any type of life insurance is likely available to you. Moreover, underwriters won't generally limit the death benefit available to you.
What is the waiting period for pre-existing diseases?
Pre-existing diseases (PED) are mostly expensive to treat as they are chronic in nature. Unfortunately, most health insurance plans cover pre-existing diseases after a waiting period of 1 to 3 years as people are already suffering from such diseases at the time of policy purchase.
Is acid reflux considered a pre-existing condition?
Is reflux really a pre-existing medical condition? The simple answer is yes.
Is back pain a pre-existing condition?
For example, say you have chronic back pain from a past injury. If you get rear-ended in traffic and suffer a new back/neck injury, the insurance companies would likely classify the chronic back pain as a pre-existing condition.