Using Your EAP More Effectively

We'd be the first to tell you how much of a positive impact an EAP can have on the health of your employees—not just their mental and emotional health, but their physical health, as well. There is an increasingly large body of research about co-morbidities between medical conditions and mental health issues, especially depression. It's a factor with chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, but also with FMLA- and disability-related conditions ranging from musculoskeletal injuries, to post-pregnancy, to recovery from surgery and cancer treatment.

The impact, if left unaddressed, can be considerable:

• Higher medical costs due to more and longer hospitalizations, and more trips to the emergency room
• Non-compliance with medications and medical advice, leading to longer recovery times, complications and relapses
• Longer leave from work and/or more absenteeism
• Loss of productivity due to presenteeism
• Downstream psychosocial issues such as family and marital problems, financial problems, chemical and substance abuse, and greater stress and anxiety, to name a few

For some employees, it becomes a vicious cycle that is hard to break. For employers, it's a significant expense. Mercer's 2010 "Survey on the Total Financial Impact of Employee Absences " found that the average total costs of incidental unplanned absences and extended absences amounted to 8.7% of payroll, not counting workers' compensation and administrative costs. That's over half the cost of healthcare expenses, which averaged 13.6% of payroll.

Furthermore, non-cost impacts of these absences were significant, according to survey respondents:

• Adds to workloads (90%)
• Disrupts the work of others (80%)
• Increases stress (78%)
• Hurts morale (63%)
• Reduces the quality of work output (59%)

Employers are taking a number of approaches to reducing the impact of absences on operations. However, in their most recent "Absence and Disability Management Survey" fielded in 2010, Mercer found that employers are increasingly referring employees on leave to their EAP at significantly higher rates than what was reported in the 2007 study:

• Psychiatric disability (44% vs. 28%)
• Medical disability (26% vs. 17%)
• Family and medical leave (25% vs. 16%)
• Workers' compensation (12% vs. 9%)

Why is that? Respondents reported that "depression and anxiety" was the disability condition that was leading in terms of increases in frequency or cost, at 48%, ahead of cancer (47%), non-low back musculoskeletal pain (32%) and cardiovascular conditions (27%). In recognition of that, employers are increasingly creating formal links between their STD and EAP programs—12% of all employers, and 20% of employers with 5,000+ employees, are pursuing a higher rate of coordination than with disease management or health advocacy programs.

HOW CAN WE HELP?

At VITAL WorkLife, we encourage you to explore this approach. We'd be happy to meet with you to discuss how to better integrate your absence management programs with the EAP services we provide. It can be as simple as encouraging your employees who are on leave to call us so that we can help them with any mental or behavioral health problems that they're struggling with, to assisting with the kinds of psychosocial issues many employees encounter when they're out on leave.

Additionally, you can ask your case managers—internal or with external vendors—to refer employees to us. We'd be happy to provide them with tips on things to watch for, and an outline of how we can help, so that they understand how we can complement and enhance their services.

For more information, please contact your account services manager on how we can help you reduce your absence-related costs.

Pathways to Well Being Call VITAL WorkLife at 800.383.1908 or access resources through your VITAL WorkLife App.