Did you know that 1 in 5 American adults experience a mental health concern each year? With that in mind, we invited Dr. Derek Baughman, Medical Director of Family Health and Pediatrics Clinics at Barksdale Air Force Base, and Andia Paz, Senior Director of Business Development at First Stop Health, to join our monthly Health Risk Webinar Series to discuss how employers can implement virtual mental health care solutions to better the lives of their employees.
Continue reading for a recap of Paz and Baughman’s presentation.
With the number of individuals in need of mental health support continuing to rise, it’s important to provide employees with the best benefits to support their mental well-being. According to Paz and Baughman, employers recognize these needs and mental health initiatives will remain a priority for employers this year. In fact, according to Paz and Baughman’s presentation, data shows that almost 9 in 10 employers plan to switch to high-performing health and wellness benefits to better support employees.
To showcase the need for sustainable mental health care solutions, Paz and Baughman provided us with several need-to-know mental health statistics. Consider the following:
According to Paz and Baughman, virtual care has become a preferred healthcare delivery model for many, and it’s clear that it’s here to stay.
In fact, according to an article from Healthcare Finance, 88% of Americans would like to continue using virtual care following the pandemic. Data from Healthcare IT News showed that virtual care is also more popular among younger people, with 40% of millennials — 75% of the workforce by 2025 — believing telemedicine is a crucial part of an employee benefits package.
To highlight the growing demand for virtual care, Dr. Baughman conducted a recent study of more than 500,000 patients to evaluate the quality of performance of care delivered virtually versus an in-person setting. The findings were simple: Virtual care provides a convenient means of accessing care and even improves users’ healthcare experiences.
Here are a few of the findings from Dr. Baughman’s study that show virtual care provides a better healthcare experience compared to traditional, in-person care:
According to Paz and Baughman, virtual care can deliver a great deal of value to a workforce. Still, employees must be aware of their benefits programs and utilize the solutions to experience their actual value. The best virtual care providers should work with employers to strategize and develop a plan for success. Before selecting a provider, employers should ask whether employee engagement is part of the vendor’s offering. If not, employers must know that they will need to do most of the heavy lifting to drive engagement. In addition, engagement campaigns should be fully implemented, managed, and funded by the virtual care provider.
Without the proper guidance, adding new benefit programs can be difficult and time-consuming. The virtual care provider should work closely with the client to ensure the onboarding process should be easy and efficient. Additionally, clients should have access to account managers who work closely with them to streamline the process and set up eligible employees.
As employers shift focus to employee-centric benefits programs, they must also consider the value a mental health solution can bring to their workforce. Virtual care has rapidly become the new normal, and due to its convenience, low-to-no cost, and accessibility, virtual mental health care is a preferred modality to get support for many.
This presentation was part of Captive Resources’ Medical Stop Loss Webinar Series — regular installments of webinars to educate medical stop loss group captive members. The thoughts and opinions expressed in these webinars are those of the presenters and do not necessarily reflect Captive Resources’ positions on any of the above topics.
