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Employee
Assistance Plans
You may wish to
offer an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) as a part of an
employee-benefits program. EAPs are sometimes called wellness
programs.
Employee
Assistance Programs offer professional counseling, coping, and
treatment services for their beneficiaries. Some of the
counseling services that EAPs provide deal with:
- Mental
health and wellness. Counseling services may help
employees or their dependents cope with the loss of a
family member or to deal with a wide range of anxieties.
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attack in the U.S., employees reportedly began to utilize
their EAP benefits much more.
- Substance
abuse. In addition to counseling services, some
EAPs offer treatment services for alcohol or substance
abuse. Substance abuse affects millions of working
Americans. Employers find that some level of
rehabilitation effort is a cheaper solution than
termination. New employees, after all, require training
and an investment of resources.
- Marital
and family problems. Mediation and dispute-resolution
services offered by an employee assistance program may
improve a strained marriage, identify cases of spouse or
child abuse, or help parents to cope with an adolescent
child.
- Personal
debt management. Professional counseling and
treatment may identify a gambling addiction, compulsive
use of credit, or similar behavioral disorder.
While some
employers may consider EAPs an unnecessary benefit, the fact is
that millions of worker-hours are lost each year to employee
absenteeism, turnover, and poor productivity. EAPs can help to
mitigate these kinds of workforce-related problems.
Employee
assistance programs are often included in a basic health-insurance
plan. Increasingly, managed-care health insurers see EAPs as a
cost-effective tool in identifying early on the symptoms of
health risks. Undiagnosed and untreated at an early stage, these
symptoms may lead to costlier medical treatment. In this respect,
EAPs serve as an "early-warning" system.
If an EAP is
not included in your health insurance plan, you may be able to
negotiate with your benefits administrator to add coverage for
little extra cost. Alternatively, you can also set up and self-administer
an employee assistance program. Expenses for an EAP may be
excludable under IRS rules for treatment of fringe benefits. For
more information, see IRS Pub. 15-B.
(Note: This
document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). If you do not have
a PDF reader installed on your computer, you can download a
version of Acrobat Reader for free at Adobe Systems' Web site.)
For more
information, see the Web site of the Employee Assistance
Professionals Association (EAPA). Established in 1971, the non-profit
association has more than 100 worldwide chapters. It certifies
EAP professionals and manages a public policy and advocacy center.
Free information on the Web site is limited.
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