Finding the Right EAP for Employee Mental Health

Do you need more mental health support than your current EAP is offering?

So much has changed over the past few years, taking mental health support out of that nice-to-have category and placing it squarely onto the list of must-have benefits for every company. 

When HR leaders are evaluating solutions, it’s essential to ensure the one you choose delivers both validated clinical outcomes and financial ROI. 

To help you cut through the noise, we’re breaking down the specific components you should be looking for in an innovative EAP that contains a comprehensive mental health benefit. 

Removing the guesswork from mental healthcare

When an employee decides to use their EAP to get mental health support, they  likely need help quickly. The last thing they need is a list of therapists to call themselves, who may not be in their network or accepting their insurance or new patients. 

An HR Benefits Director we spoke with put it this way: “If I’m depressed and I’m given the names of ten providers, and when I call those ten, six don’t have availability, three aren’t in-network, and one may have passed away because the list isn’t up to date—now I’ve been rejected ten times. How much more depressed am I going to feel?”

Spring Health’s mission is to eliminate every barrier to mental healthcare, and we eliminate this particular barrier with our 3-5 minute, clinically-validated online assessment. It screens for over 12 different clinical issues, which is critical because people often have more than one mental health issue. 

For example, a death in the family could be what motivates an employee to seek out therapy, but they could also be dealing with anxiety, depression, financial or job-related issues, and mental health issues in their children that have all been building up.  

Our mental health assessment identifies all these areas and creates a personalized plan to ensure the employee receives the care they actually need. Meanwhile, our AI-based technology is working in the background, using millions of data points to match the employee with a provider who has experience and expertise with their specific needs. 

And the employee can schedule their initial appointment in less than two days—no guessing, no waiting, and no trial and error. We call this process precision mental healthcare. 

A licensed clinician to guide your employees

An employee’s need for guidance and support doesn’t end when they are assigned a therapist. They need a co-pilot who will be there whenever they’re needed, every step of the way. 

At Spring Health, these are our Care Navigators. 

Every employee is assigned a dedicated Care Navigator, who is a licensed clinician. This means that the employee will work with the same person throughout their mental health journey.  

Spring Health regularly rescreens enrolled employees to ensure they’re doing better. If their symptoms are getting worse, their Care Navigator proactively reaches out to see what they need. 

This may be working with a different provider who is closer to their demographic or culture, and Care Navigators use their knowledge of our thousands of providers to find one that’s a better fit. 

Plus, people who work with a Care Navigator are eight times more likely to see a therapist, and stay with that same provider. 

We know everyone in your organization is busy, and this partnership ensures that employees who need support keep prioritizing their mental health and get better.

A solution that delivers financial ROI

Until the past few years, searches for return on investment for mental health solutions would produce studies from the 1970s and 80s. And referencing a study from 30 years ago is not going to get your CHRO or CEO on board. 

It’s also not exactly convincing to pitch a mental health solution as simply the ‘right thing to do’ for your employees’ wellbeing. You need data to prove that it will work. 

Cost-effective care, proven to work

JAMA Network Open is an exclusive medical journal, and they recently validated Spring Health as the first and only mental healthcare company that actually improves employee mental health while helping to generate significant financial return for employers.

Spring Health started the study to determine if engaging in well-designed mental healthcare led to significant improvements in employee mental health that translated into a return on the company’s investment. 

The study proved that it takes fewer sessions with a Spring Health provider for an employee to get better, which leads to increased productivity.

Faster recovery and lower costs generate significant financial returns

A separate study conducted by Santa Barbara Actuaries (SBA) also focused on ROI for employers, in terms of spend on health insurance claims. This study found that when companies make an investment in employee mental health by partnering with Spring Health, financial outcomes improve. 

We’re the only mental health solution for employees and their families, including children ages 6+, to show NET financial return (ROI), delivering $2,195 net financial savings (after deducting the cost of Spring Health care) and 30% net savings per patient per year, on average. 

If you're being asked, ‘Why should our company focus on mental health?’ both of these studies provide excellent answers. This benefit may be a small component of your larger package, but it will deliver significant ROI. 

Read this blog next to discover why Wellstar switched to an innovative EAP, and how they increased utilization from their traditional EAP by 600%.