Fighting Depression Can Improve Productivity Making sure that employees suffering from depression have access to high quality care is not only the right thing to doit makes good business sense.
Research suggests that depression costs U.S. employers tens of billions of dollars in lost work time and reduced productivity each year.
Corporate efforts to reduce the stigma associated with the disease and provide support for depressed employees create a work culture that fosters creativity, self-management, teamwork and sense of respect for the needs of employees.
But employers and their benefits advisors might wonder how they can transition from wanting to provide access to effective assistance to actually doing it.
Employers can start by designing benefits programs that offer the right kinds of services and making sure vendors live up to their promises.
Program Design ABCs
There are many ways that employers can promote awareness of depression, help de-stigmatize the disease, and encourage care seeking without violating their workers privacy.
Employers can organize seminars that encourage workers and other benefit plan members to seek care. They can also offer individual counseling programs, telephone screening programs and Web-based services.
Employers need to do more than just set up a toll-free telephone number. A good program should offer generous coverage for outpatient counseling and effective antidepressants.
Promoting outpatient care for depression can lower overall benefit-plan costs by reducing the need for inpatient care for depression and the cost of treating other medical problems caused or aggravated by the disease.
Measuring Results
Employers that want a high return on their investment in fighting depression should communicate often with their major medical insurers, behavioral health program administrators, pharmacy benefit program managers and other benefit-plan vendors.
They should also insist that the vendors communicate with one another and, when possible, establish specific standards for performance in treating depression.
The new federal health privacy laws and regulations tightly restrict employers access to information about specific employees. However, large employers might be able to persuade vendors to measure the effects of treatment indirectly by gauging overall worker productivity before and after a new benefits strategy is implemented.
Employers can also consider measures such as the performance statistics compiled by the National Committee for Quality Assurance and other organizations.
Patricia Pittman is a senior manager and director of AcademyHealths International Exchange for Health Services Research and Policy in Washington, D.C.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 7, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved. Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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