{"id":613740,"date":"2026-04-29T18:44:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/613740\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T18:44:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T18:44:08","slug":"gov-bill-lee-declares-may-as-mental-health-awareness-month-in-tennessee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/613740\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Bill Lee declares May as &#8216;Mental Health Awareness Month&#8217; in Tennessee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) \u2014 Gov. Bill Lee has officially declared May as &#8216;Mental Health Awareness Month&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes as state leaders highlight protections aimed at ensuring mental health care is treated along with physical health care. Under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cms.gov\/marketplace\/private-health-insurance\/mental-health-parity-addiction-equity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">legislation passed by Congress in 2008<\/a>, any health insurance plan that covers mental health treatment must generally match its coverage with the plan\u2019s physical health coverage.<\/p>\n<p>That parity requirement applies across key parts of coverage, including copays, deductibles, the number of days covered for a hospital stay, prior authorization, prescription drug tiers and maximum benefit limits.<\/p>\n<p> TDCI Commissioner Carter Lawrence expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to work alongside the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services to help raise awareness.<\/p>\n<p>A person\u2019s emotional, psychological, and mental well-being is just as important as their physical well-being,Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n<p>BE THE FIRST TO COMMENT<\/p>\n<p>Officials say the conversation around mental health is shifting, and access must continue to keep pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) \u2014 Gov. Bill Lee has officially declared May as &#8216;Mental Health Awareness Month&#8217;. The announcement&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":["post-613740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}