Annotated Bibliography - Employee Assistance Programs

This special supplementary section of the CounsellingBooks.com bibliography provides an independently produced annotated bibliography on managed behavioural healthcare prepared for the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; please see the first page of the supplement for recommended citation information.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Benefit and System Design
  3. Capitation
  4. Community Mental Health Services
  5. Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs)
  6. Economics, Forecasting, and Pricing
  7. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
  8. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs)
  9. Law and Ethics
  10. Provider Issues
  11. Public Sector
  12. Quality Assurance and Outcomes
  13. Special Populations
    1. Children
    2. Elderly
    3. Ethnic Groups
    4. Women
  14. Substance Abuse
  15. Training and Education
  16. Utilization Management
  17. Author Index
  18. Keyword Index

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

138. Kent, J. (1990). The role of employee assistance programs in managed mental health care. Medical Interface, 14, 25-28.

Mental health problems of employees can be extremely costly to employers in terms of lost productivity, low morale, and worker’s compensation. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) were developed as a way for employers to provide cost-effective mental health services to their employees. This article provides criteria for evaluating EAPs and describes a typical EAP serv-ice package and an effective psychiatric review process.
Keywords: EAPs

139. Major, C. (1993). EAPs as customers of managed mental health. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 21, 35-39.

This article describes AT&T’s internal employee assistance program and its efforts to promote quality care by monitoring the managed care provider network and using clinical practice guidelines to evaluate client needs and treatment outcomes. The author suggests ways of obtaining and maintaining a high-quality panel of providers and describes the benefits of clini-cal practice guidelines. In addition to providing a flexible method for consistent but individual-ized clinical decision-making, guidelines also are the basis for clinical outcome studies to meas-ure effectiveness and appropriateness of treatment decisions and become the foundation for continuous quality improvement.
Keywords: EAPs

140. Masi, D. A., & Caplan, R. (1992). Employee assistance programs. In J. Feldman & R. J. Fitzpatrick (Eds.), Managed mental health care: Administrative and clinical issues (1st ed., pp. 321-333). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.

This chapter describes the evolution of employee assistance programs (EAPs) from the 1940s when they were designed in response to alcoholism among employees. The authors describe several models of employee assistance programs and ingredients of effective EAPs. They describe the differences and similarities between EAPs and HMOs and show why the interface between the two is sometimes conflictual. The three major problems between HMOs and EAPs arise over clashes in the gatekeeping role, in choice of preferred provider, and through general lack of communication. The authors describe current trends that have implications for the future of EAPs. They argue that the four factors that will have direct impact on the future of EAPs are (1) the role of EAPs in managed mental health; (2) the focus on drug abuse in the Special workplace; (3) the increasing number of persons affected by AIDS; and (4) the growing need for quality management and clinical evaluation by third parties.
Keywords: EAPs, overviews, trends

141. Miller, N. A. (1992). An evaluation of substance misuse treatment providers used by an employee assistance program. The International Journal of the Addictions, 27, 533-559.

Thirty fee-for-service (FFS) facilities and nine HMOs were analyzed to determine the pro-vider characteristics that are most likely to increase access and improve outcomes for people referred for substance abuse problems. This article evaluates measures of access to care, conti-nuity, and quality of treatment programs to which 243 employees of one public sector pro-gram were referred by their employee assistance program (EAP). The study recommends that EAPs develop a mechanism to evaluate providers on an ongoing basis. One mechanism sug-gested is a precontract request for proposals in which treatment providers document that they provide those characteristics shown to increase access and improve treatment outcomes. Some of these characteristics include use of a multidisciplinary treatment team, provision of coordi-nated treatment services, and provision of a treatment program that enables an employee to directly contact and enter a treatment program.
Keywords: EAPs, evaluation, substance abuse

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This page was last reviewed by Dr Greg Mulhauser, Thursday, 14 October 2021.