The Role of Benefits in Trauma Informed Workplaces

Trauma informed workplaces NEVER seek to diagnose or treat trauma or related health issues, which we’ve discussed quite a bit in our exploration of trauma informed workplaces. I’m effusive about this because care from someone without the right training and credentials can do much more harm than good.

It’s also important to note, trauma informed workplaces don’t replace mental health care- they only seek to support in the context of the workplace. However, we also recognize that unaddressed and untreated mental health concerns and trauma can have massive negative impacts on individuals in all aspects of their lives, including work.

Without robust benefits that support mental health care access, your trauma informed culture can’t realize it’s full impact on your employees or your organization. if you were to do only one thing to improve your workplace — it’s improving employer-sponsored benefits that provide for affordable, accessible mental healthcare access.

Significant issues with most benefit offerings have little to do with employers and rather more to do with the insurance and healthcare systems at large.

We must explore these realities facing our employees, communities and ourselves as employers to best navigate the steps that can be taken in the short and long term to better support your team’s access to mental health or behavioral healthcare.

On last week’s Building Trauma Informed Workplaces podcast (you can listen to it here), my friend Christi shared her personal experience navigating mental healthcare coverage.

Christi is a career HR professional- familiar with navigating benefits challenges. When a family member needed urgent access to mental healthcare, despite her expertise and great benefits from her employer, she found that the entire expense was out of pocket. Nothing was covered by her insurance provider.

Christi and her family are doing well, but faced with a similar situation- many others could face serious financial ramifications or devastation from these types of unexpected costs.

How often are people who are in desperate need of care and support faced with an impossible choice to seek that care when they cannot afford it? The cost of mental health care can be a major barrier for many people. Even with insurance- copays, coinsurance, and deductibles can become significant costs. In addition, many mental health professionals do not accept insurance, which can make the cost higher.

Our current healthcare system undermines safety for those relying on it for care- specifically, it undermines financial safety. Safety is the foundation of trauma informed workplaces (and trauma informed care and recovery).

Disregarding potential affordability barriers, other challenges persist. There is a shortage of mental health professionals in many areas- especially rural areas, which can make it difficult to find a provider who is accepting new patients.

Layer on additional challenges for providers specializing in specific types of care, providers with diverse backgrounds, and other potential barriers- for example, language, access becomes a huge barrier for many seeking to find care.

Now layer the challenge of affordability and access and you can begin to see the full scope of the accessibility issues we face. Most of us who access or seek to access mental health care have had run-ins with either affordability or access (or both).

For me, I received news that my therapist would no longer be covered in network one month before the change. My options were to either seek a new provider that was covered (and face the availability challenges outlined), pay out of pocket, or cease accessing care.

Fortunately, I was able to pay out of pocket and then make other arrangements for the future to minimize both issues, but the scenario was still upsetting; I can’t imagine how devastating it would have been if I hadn’t had the privilege to access care by paying out of pocket for a time.

Additional barriers to mental healthcare access also include:

• Stigma: Stigma associated with mental illness can deter people from seeking help. People may be afraid of being labeled or judged, or they may worry about how others will react if they find out they are seeing a therapist.

• Transportation: Transportation can be a barrier for people who live in rural areas or who do not have reliable transportation. This can make it difficult to get to appointments with a mental health provider.

• Lack of awareness: Many people are not aware of the signs and symptoms of mental illness, or they may be unaware of where to go for help. This can delay diagnosis and treatment.

What Can Employers Do to Increase Access to Mental HealthCare for their Teams?

While we must be realistic about current challenges to the mental healthcare system and the healthcare systems at large, there are still many ways employers can maximize their current benefit offerings to support their team members and support a trauma informed culture.

Mental Health Care Add-Ons

If your budget allows, one of the best ways to tackle access challenges is with one of the many new tools available in the telehealth and virtual wellbeing marketplace. Often these tools can be more cost effective than you may expect as well.

Keep in mind, that there are different types of services offered, from libraries of virtual resources to therapy or psychiatric support. Understanding what level of support, you are looking to bolster is key as you evaluate which tool(s) are right for you and your team.

It’s also important to factor in your location(s) and your employee profile. If your employees hate using a computer or jumping on Zoom, you may have disappointing utilization.

Below are some great options to explore if you are interested in these options for your team (or yourself- many offer individual services as well)

• Modern Employee Mental Health Care | Talkspace

• Headspace for Employers | Mental Healthcare for Your Employees & Their Families

• Calm Business: Corporate Wellness Solution for Modern Organizations

• BetterHelp (betterhelporg.com)

Fully Leverage Benefits

Perhaps you don’t have much extra in the budget to explore additional resources, this is not uncommon considering the significant expense and increase employers are seeing in benefits cost this (and most) years. If this is the scenario you’re faced with this year, not to fear, you can still help boost accessibility for your team.

EAP (Employee Assistance Programs) are standard for most benefits offerings; your broker or insurance provider generally includes this in your plans. Despite the numerous and confidential resources provided by EAPs, they are woefully underutilized. Most EAPs have less than a 5% utilization rate.

So, focusing on maximizing what’s already available and increasing EAP usage. Here is a great resource on how to increase usage within your organization — The Step-by-Step Guide to Increase EAP Utilization | Nivati.

You can also work with your benefits broker to provide a ‘cheat sheet’ or FAQs on insurance access and focus on mental health resources. This will work best based on location as most providers have specific coverage based on location.

Another area to make sure you are maximizing- look for partnerships and other resources your broker has available. Many offer partnerships and resources at reduced costs to your employees. One of my favorite providers, Bennie — Better Benefits, does a great job of providing partnerships to enhance resources without adding to costs- especially for small and midsize employers.

Financial Supports

Sometimes financial emergencies pop up for our team, despite increased efforts to improve benefits and access. For that reason, I wanted to highlight a couple of financial support options as well.

Global Employee Relief Fund Platform | Canary (workwithcanary.com) — Canary offers relief grant access to employees when they run into an unexpected financial challenge, for example, healthcare costs. This is a great, innovative service to both streamline and ensure equal access to financial support in your organization.

Financial tools | Northstar (northstarmoney.com)- I’ve mentioned Northstar before because I love their model. Northstar offers a wide variety of tools for financial planning and tackling challenges as it relates to finances of benefits with financial advisors for every level of an organization.

Lobby Insurance Companies for Better Coverage

Admittedly, this is a long-term strategy and will take time- nevertheless, it’s a vital one. Employers choose brokers and insurance providers. One of the questions to ask and items to lobby for is more robust coverage for mental and behavioral health services. Large employers have an upper hand here and can lead the way in insisting coverage meets their teams’ needs.

Supporting changes for better access and affordability for mental and behavioral healthcare is just as important as normalizing discussions around mental health and treatment. While there is no magic fix for our current system, there are many ways in both the short and long term that employers can lead the way for improvements. Remember, without access to credentialed professionals to support trauma recovery, your organization cannot realize the full benefits of a trauma informed culture.