When is it the right time for organizations to evaluate their mental health solutions?

When is it the right time for organizations to evaluate their mental health solutions?

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) were once the gold standard for supporting employee mental health. But as workforce needs have evolved, and as mental health has become a business priority, the traditional EAP model hasn’t kept up.

In a survey of 500+ HR professionals across five countries, Spring Health found that exactly half of all HR professionals are "very satisfied" with their EAP or mental health solution. But that also means another 50% are less than "very satisfied."

If you’re a benefits decision maker and your current EAP is underutilized, lacks transparency, or fails to deliver measurable outcomes, it’s time to ask: How can our organization feel very satisfied with its solution? Is our mental health solution still working for us? Or are we simply checking a box?

What makes a good mental health solution?

Modern mental health solutions should deliver care that’s:

• Personalized: Matches employees to the right level of care based on their needs, preferences, and severity.
• Accessible: Offers timely appointments, easy digital entry points, and providers who reflect employees’ language and cultural needs.
• Measurable: Tracks engagement, clinical outcomes, and business-relevant metrics so organizations can evaluate impact.
• Comprehensive: Supports a wide range of needs, from everyday stress and burnout to higher-acuity conditions such as depression, trauma, and substance use disorder.
• Localized for global workforces: Delivers a consistent experience across regions while accounting for local language, culture, provider availability, and care norms.

That expectation is also shaping talent decisions. Spring Health also surveyed 1,500+ full-time employees across five countries, and 69% said mental health benefits are very or extremely important to their job decisions.

Why your mental health solution might be falling short

Many organizations are experiencing rising healthcare costs and increased burnout, despite offering a mental health benefit. That’s often a symptom of a traditional EAP not built to solve today’s challenges.

Key shortcomings of traditional EAPs include:

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• Long wait times and scheduling delays
• Lack of provider diversity or specialization
• Low employee awareness and trust
• No return on investment (ROI) or outcomes reporting
• Inability to address moderate-to-severe needs

The result: Employees either avoid care altogether or seek expensive, out-of-network treatment through the health plan, which can drive up employer healthcare costs.

When is it time to evaluate your mental health solution?

One of the key findings from Spring Health’s research is that the likelihood of an HR professional saying they were "very satisfied" with their mental health solution increased dramatically if they had recently evaluated its effectiveness.

Among those who had evaluated their mental health solution in the past year, 60% described themselves as very satisfied. Among those who had gone three years or more since they last evaluated their mental health solution's effectiveness, only 34% said they were very satisfied with it.

That means now is a great time to evaluate your mental health solution. But these factors might also encourage an organization to evaluate their mental health solution sooner rather than later:

• Your healthcare costs are rising faster than benchmark.
• Your disability and leave claims have increased.
• Your workforce is showing signs of burnout, disengagement, or turnover.
• You can’t measure the ROI or impact of your mental health benefits.
• Your mental health solution still operates in a reactive, analog model.

A few questions to help with your evaluation

Start by asking the right questions of your mental health solution, benefits consultant, or carrier. When possible, ask for the following to be benchmarked against other similar-sized organizations in your industry or location.

• What is our actual utilization rate?
• What’s the average wait time for care?
• Do employees have access to culturally competent, diverse providers?
• Are you tracking symptom improvement (e.g., depression, anxiety)?
• Do you offer independently verified ROI data?
• Can we tie mental health usage to claims reduction or productivity gains?
• Can you identify behavioral health-related pharmacy claims?
• Are high-cost claimants receiving behavioral health support?
• Do you provide real-time crisis support?
• Can you support comorbid and complex conditions?

This story was produced by Spring Health and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.