Early in his career, Philip Burguieres, Vice Chairman of the Houston Texans, experienced a serious episode of depression. He learned that treatment for mental health conditions were not covered on the same level as other medical conditions. He felt the practice was unfair and a barrier to treatment and decided to change things. The Texans became the first NFL franchise to provide mental health parity for its workers.
"We have found no increase in our costs for mental health parity," Burguieres has said. "It's pretty simple. People who have access to mental health programs are healthier employees."
The reality is that serious mental health conditions are associated with more than $193 billion in lost earnings per year. Issues around these numbers include losses from absenteeism, sick leave, accidents, health insurance claims, and disability payments. This is more than $600 per person in the country. To look at it another way, from the perspective of companies and revenues, only Wal-Mart had revenues of more than $200 billion in 2002. Mental illness costs more than diabetes or cancer and is higher in indirect costs than the other illnesses.
Chronic diseases are those conditions that contribute most heavily to illness, disability and death. They are also most likely to occur with a mental health condition, which are among of the disabling. Cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular disease and diabetes cause less disability than mental health conditions. More than 20 percent of the disability in the United State is tied to mental health conditions. That rises to one-third if you add substance use conditions.
Workplace initiatives can have a significant effect on reducing the impact of these mental health conditions. Health promotion programs, which may involve raising awareness as well as screenings for a variety of chronic conditions, have produced lower medical costs, absenteeism and disability management claims. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) can enhance well-being and generate improvements in performance on the job.
Even if people are receiving mental health treatment, the quality of care can still be a problem. Employers are in a vital position to insurer quality by offering depression screening for patients with chronic conditions, documenting of mental health treatment plans, and referring employees on disability to a behavioral health specialist.
Among the many and growing sources of useful and credible information on mental health treatment in the workplace are the recommendations from the National Business Group on Health's Employer's Guide on Behavioral Health Services. The Partnership for Workplace Mental Health also provides valuable information, toolkits and related materials. And Mental Health America's FundaMENTAL Health, Bottomline Sense program is informing business and helping them understand the facts and solutions.
When Congress passed health care reform, it also sent an important message about the importance of behavioral health and parity. Under the legislation, mental health and substance use services are treated as required benefits in new plans. And it extends parity to plans available to small businesses and individuals through state-based exchanges.
It underscores what Philip Burguieres and other business leaders have determined. Offering behavioral health programs and services to workers pays dividends in human terms and economic terms.
