By law, mental health benefits are supposed to be as good as medical coverage. In practice, that’s not happening.
Like most dads, John Cooke would have done anything to save his daughter.
He was lucky he had the money. To make her well, to make his teenager want to live and stop planning her suicide, Cooke and his wife would end up paying $150,000.
With each denial from the family’s insurance company, the Cookes wrote another check. When the company deemed it no longer “medically necessary” for their teenager to stay in a residential treatment center in Wisconsin, or another center in Utah, the Cookes paid out of pocket until the doctors said she was well enough to come home.
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Mental Health Colorado is an advocacy organization. We do not provide crisis services, clinical care, or direct mental health support. The organization’s contact information is for non-crisis inquiries and is monitored during business hours only.