How mental health illness impacts the healthcare costs of employers

Many employers are now recognizing that mental health illness and just are devastating to the workplace as those of physical illness, like diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer. Mental health illnesses lead to decreased work productivity, which in turn raises costs for employers. By acknowledging mental health illnesses and offering employees help with mental health illnesses, employers are in turn helping increasing the productivity within their workplaces.

There are a variety of mental health illnesses. The most common mental health illnesses are: depression, anxiety disorders, and personality disorders. Depression affects nearly 14 million adults yearly. This is a large number and thus it would mean that employer's would see the effects of depression upon employees frequently.

Depression is characterized by feelings of loss of interest in nearly all activities at least 2 times a week. Other symptoms of depression include changes in appetite or weight, sleep; feelings of worthlessness or guilt; difficulty concentrating or making decisions; or recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal ideation, plans or attempts; decreased energy; decreased attentiveness to oneself or to one's tasks; decreased ability to concentrate.

All of these symptoms can contribute to an employee's decreased productivity at work or increased absenteeism. Decreased work productivity or increased absenteeism all affect on employer in a negative way. Also, a depressed person may neglect his or her appearance and let assignments or projects slide. A person with depression may complain no "motivation." He or she may have particular difficulties getting activities started, which may lead to decreased production at work.

Depression often makes it difficult for a person to think through a problem and, thus, to initiate and complete a complex task. A depressed person may vacillate between choices to an unusual degree and may defer decision-making to others. This may be true even for simple decisions. These effects of depression may make it difficult for others in the work place to work with this type of a person especially in a team oriented type project.

Many depressed people often feel negative feelings like shame, humiliation, fear, denial, and anger. All of these feelings do not allow the depressed person the ability to reach out and ask for help. This may lead to difficulties for the depressed person at work, which in turn would affect the work of this person.

If an employer recognizes that depression is a true disease and offers employee assistance for such a disease, the employee that suffers from depression may find it easier to work in an environment that is conducive to his or her mental health. Employee health programs that include information regarding mental health illnesses that encouraged employees to discuss their illness and seek treatment for such an illness would also aid employees.

Prescription drug plans would also help employees in balancing employees' mental health. Depression is typically treated with drug called anti-depressants. Each individual is different, so there is no one drug to treat depression and many times individuals will have to try more than one prescription medication till a "good fit" is found. Prescription drugs are not cheap and if faced with a choice on how to spend ones money, many people choose to not fill prescription drugs. If an employee had a drug coverage plan under their employee health care benefits package, then the cost of the prescription medications would be much less. Decreased cost of medication would thus increase the chances that one would fill the prescription and take the medications as prescribed by their physician. Increased medication compliance would thus allow the employees mental health illness to be treated properly. If a mental health illness were treated properly, the employee would then be allowed to perform their job functions at an increased level, thus increasing work place productivity and decreased numbers of absenteeism from work. All of which means increasing productivity for ones employer.