National Alliance’s Workplace Mental Health Strategy

The National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions recently released an updated framework for workplace mental health strategy.

Citing a 2022 study by Gallup, the National Alliance writes that “nearly one-fifth of US workers (19%) rated their mental health as fair or poor; those workers reported about four times more unplanned absences due to poor mental health than their peers. Mental health issues in the US workforce cost the economy an estimated $185 billion annually in lost productivity and presenteeism.”

Accordingly, the National Alliance recommends four action steps for employers:

1. Recognize organizational and personal drivers of mental health and high-quality care.
2. Build personalized, ethnically and culturally sensitive mental health support into the care structure.
3. Educate with deliberate and purposeful employee communications that resonate across a diverse population.
4. Hold vendors accountable for improving their services’ affordability, timeliness, and appropriateness to each individual.

Accordingly, the National Alliance created a vendor-engagement template to help employers improve mental-health access and support for employees.

To aid healthcare purchasers in their goal of providing effective access to mental healthcare, the National Alliance provided a one-page summary of new guidance from the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services on compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA).