Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...Krystal Nice tried multiple times to get disability benefits for mental illness. Her psychiatrist — Nice was on Medicaid — suggested she file for disability benefits because of her mental health condition. Denials and delays in getting disability benefits — via Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or the Supplemental Security Income program (SSI) — remain a source of frustration and anguish for many people. Two critical problems are that reimbursements for providers are lower for mental health care, and federal and state agencies aren’t fully enforcing the 2008 Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act. “I will have to figure something out.”Public Health Watch is part of the Mental Health Parity Collaborative, a group of newsrooms that are covering stories on mental health care access and inequities in the U.S.