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benefits business INVESTING IN EAPs—EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS Employer-sponsored counseling and referral services increase employee productivity By Len Strazewski
Do you know where your clients’ employees turn when they have legal, financial, mental health or other personal problems? If they share their problems with an untrained co-worker, a friend or a bartender, they probably don’t have access to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), a confidential counseling and referral service provided as an employee benefit by many employers. And their employer’s agent or broker probably hasn’t done a good job of communicating how this benefit supports productivity, wellness and managerial efficiency as well as mental health and, in addition, has become affordable to employers of all sizes. EAPs have been around for more than 20 years and have slowly become an employee benefits staple. According to the 2004 Mercer National Survey of Employer-sponsored Health Plans, about 74% of large employers provide EAP benefits to employees, up from about 71% the previous year. Some employers, about 18%, contract the services from the same vendors that administer mental health and substance abuse services, but most contract with a separate EAP vendor. Typical EAP programs, about 85%, provide an average of six or more short-term, face-to-face counseling sessions. About 15% provide telephone-only counseling, the survey says. Benefits of EAPs for small employers Small employers, however, are less likely to provide EAPs, industry sources say; and when they do, they provide fewer counseling sessions and less integration with other benefits. However, EAP providers, most of whom contract directly with health plans or other employee benefit insurers, are working hard to justify their value to small to medium-sized employers and provide more affordable options. For example, in May, Assurant Employee Benefits in Kansas City, Missouri, announced a new set of EAP services designed to meet the needs and budgets of small employers. The new plans are provided by New Directions Behavioral Health, in Overland Park, Kansas—Assurant’s own corporate EAP provider—and can be packaged with any of the insurer’s group life or disability programs. The EAP services range in cost from about 45 cents per employee per month for phone assessment and referral only to about $2.50 per employee per month for a traditional EAP with six counseling sessions and training and support services to management as well as employee counseling. “We have been providing EAP services packaged with life and disability insurance and other benefits since 1991,” explains Melonie Jones, second vice president of life and disability marketing. “But generally we have been providing a high level of benefit that has been out of the price range for many smaller employers.” However, a growing recognition of the significant impact EAPs can have on productivity, absenteeism and job performance has spurred changes designed to make the services available to bigger market segments, she says. Types of services The least expensive of the new set of services, EssentialAssist, allows employers to purchase a toll-free, 24-hour-a-day telephone assessment and referral service supported by Internet-based resources with or without up to six face-to-face private counseling sessions. The insurer also offers a second tier of services, EssentialAssist Plus, which includes the telephone service, up to six counseling sessions and services for management including quarterly utilization reports and training services. Stacey Kreps, New Directions’ director of communications, says the basic level of service with telephone-only assessment and referral is not just a token benefit with little practical value. While private counseling sessions provide employees with opportunities to make appointments with off-site counselors and extended conversations about their problems, telephone counseling can provide immediate access to assistance that can accelerate an employee’s search for help. “Whenever employees face some sort of personal or family problem, their pursuit of advice or resources is going to take a toll on their job attention and productivity,” she explains. “Any access to assessment and referral services can only reduce their time spent on the next step in their search for assistance and improve productivity.” Web-based resources can also provide timely and useful answers to referral questions about legal and financial issues and work/life needs such as child care and elder care, she adds. EAP providers also claim to be able to document quantitative return on investment (ROI) for EAP services. For example, Kreps says New Directions is completing a study which indicates that access to EAP services can help reduce pharmacy costs for mental health and other treatments payable under health plans. Other recent EAP research supports the argument that the benefits can reduce employer costs for a wide range of health and productivity issues—key sales points for agents and brokers, providers say. In January, Managed Health Network, a division of HealthNet, Inc., in Port Richmond, California, announced the results of an ROI study leading to a way to measure EAP value. Deidre Hiatt, Ph.D., vice president of quality management at MHN and co-author of the study, says, “Decisions on purchasing EAP services have traditionally been made by analyzing satisfaction and utilization data, but increasingly EAP programs are being asked to show financial return on investment. We can now do this.” The study examined treatment outcome data on more than 10,000 employees with depression to determine the likely value associated with effective treatment through an EAP. Hiatt says the provider chose depression because it is the most common mental health problem in the workplace with the greatest overall impact on job performance. She says studies indicate that one of every 20 employees shows symptoms of depression and predict that by 2020, the disorder will be the second most prevalent cause of disability. “Our outcome research showed that two-thirds of employees (who contacted the EAP) reported at least moderate symptoms of depression at the time they accessed the service, and approximately half of the treated employees showed no symptoms after treatment,” she says. MHN measured the impact of this treatment result with earlier research on lost time associated with depression to generate an “ROI calculator” employers can use to measure the impact of the EAP on their own depression problem. Steve Kessler, MHN director of business development, suggests that agents and brokers use this sort of research to communicate to managers the job-related value of EAPs as well as the personal value. “The ROI calculator helps employers make the leap from intuitive value to truly quantitative value, making it much easier for benefits vice presidents and chief financial officers to see the impact of the EAP program,” he says. “EAPs should really be Employer Assistance Programs or Workplace Assistance Programs,” says Edward Trieber, Ph.D., managing director of Harris Rothenberg, Inc., a New York-based EAP provider and training company. “While employees benefit from EAP counseling and referral, it is the employer and the workplace that benefits most from improved productivity and a better work/life balance.” Trieber recommends that agents and brokers promote EAPs in conjunction with wellness and work/life programs and communicate the management services many EAPs provide to employers. He says EAPs can work directly with employers to provide training to managers in dealing with critical workplace incidents and the problems associated with personal problems and mental health issues on the job. As smaller to medium-sized employers grapple with increasing demand for productivity and managerial effectiveness, recognition of these values may help close the deal for adding an EAP. * The author |
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