Inseparable’s latest study finds that some of the Commonwealth’s leading insurance companies are only selling the illusion of mental health care coverage.
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The national mental health advocacy organization behind this May’s “Care that’s Fair” campaign has released the results of a secret shopper study exposing major barriers to mental healthcare in five states: including Virginia.
From October of 2025 to March of 2026, researchers conducted nearly 6,000 simulated appointment requests using the insurance companies’ own directories. More than half of those calls encountered provider directory errors that ranged from misleading specialty listings to incorrect provider information.
David Lloyd, Chief Policy Officer at Inseparable, says the study highlights the issue of “Ghost Networks,” a term his organization uses to describe insurance directories that create the illusion of mental healthcare coverage without actually delivering it: “People are paying premiums for their health insurance, and their health insurance promises to cover, you know, mental healthcare. But at the very first step of trying to find an in-network provider, people find that they can’t find the care that they need, and that they simply don’t have access.”
Lloyd says this leaves people with two options: “They ultimately either go without care, or they have to go to an out-of-network provider and pay additional, out-of-pocket costs, despite having health insurance.”
The study looked specifically at Anthem Virginia and CareFirst Virginia directories here in the Commonwealth, and found that only 25% of calls to Anthem providers resulted in an appointment with the listed clinician. That number fell to just 18% for CareFirst calls.
The post New Study Highlights the “Ghosts” Haunting Virginia’s Insurance Networks first appeared on News/Talk 960-AM & FM-107.3 WFIR.
