Beyond Impressions

Now, more than ever before, self-care has become a crucial part of mental health and getting through the COVID-19 pandemic. 

We shed some light on self-care through Employer-sponsored support in our last post. There is more to consider as anxiety continues to rise and a sense of self-worth becomes harder to hold onto. As healthcare providers communicate the options available, many eyes are turning to the challenging self-care balancing act performed by parents as they take care for their children and too often neglect themselves.

Read on to learn more about these resources.

Providing employee mental health services and support via Telehealth has its challenges. Today, we take a closer look at Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and how they are adapting to meet employee needs during the pandemic when stressors are high and access to healthcare services might be limited. 

The goal: helping employers communicate comprehensive EAPs that support employee needs in comfortable and accessible ways. Done well, this work supports employee attraction and retention.

Community Care Employee Assistance Program reported in 2018 some very promising national statistics on the benefits of EAPs for employees, pointing to increased effectiveness and productivity, boosted morale, and stronger work life balance. In addition to these benefits, EAPs have decreased sick leave by 33%, work-related accidents by 65%, and grievances by 50%. Fortunately, given the current pandemic, EAPs offer just the types of support services where Telehealth connections (video, phone, chat) work really well.

We recently had a conversation with Nicole D'Uva, Director of Employee Health at Adventist HealthCare in Maryland to understand how the EAP she manages has adapted to meet the needs of Adventist employees. Read on to find out about the adjustments and improvements the health system has made to its EAP since COVID-19 disrupted the work environment. 

Providing mental health services via telehealth has presented barriers. Some of those barriers we are now suddenly finding were false all along.

Today, we take a look at insurance coverage and other issues of access that have made it a challenge for some to receive the support they need through telehealth.

The goal: recognize and resolve those barriers so that care is not delayed for those who need it.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the issue and pushed so many of us to get online for interactions we historically have had in person. The demand for telehealth has increased resulting in temporary measures put in place by the the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) making insurance coverage more readily available for telehealth (video and audio) appointments, including coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

As insurance coverage has become more available, the spotlight has focused on the digital divide. In a recent fact sheet on low-income access to telehealth released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS, more than 1 in 6 low-income persons have no internet access, and those living in non-metropolitan areas have less access to the Internet than those in metropolitan areas.

Large bureaucratic assessments and policies are one thing. We wanted to know what it is like on the ground. So, we spoke with a few of our industry experts.

Read on to find out what we learned from them about barriers to care and how services are being delivered effectively…or not.