Many employers offer Employee assistance benefits, which usually include anywhere from 2-12 counseling sessions per problem per year, per family member, depending on their employer’s contract with their EAP company. Many employees are not aware this benefit exists as an employee of their company. To take advantage of this resource, which is completely separate from your medical insurance benefit, check out your Human Resources Benefits Page, and look for free counseling/EAP. To access, you will have to call them(get the number from your employer), request an authorization # to see a Strategies for Success counselor(or any other provider on their EAP network of your choosing). After you get this number linked to Strategies for Success, give us a call, and we’ll be happy to verify this authorization and get you scheduled as soon as possible. Who doesn’t want free counseling, right?
And did you know you can access many other services from your EAP? Check out their portal to learn more about the free services that may be available to you and your family. These may include financial planning/debt management, free legal consultation, free will, childcare or eldercare locators and more.
After your EAP benefits are exhausted, you can then employ your traditional mental health benefits under your insurance plan, or cash pay, depending on the best option for you based on your coverage. With high deductible plans, many choose the cash pay rate over using their insurance due to today’s high deductible plans.
Unfortunately, You cannot use your EAP benefit for Psychiatry, only for counseling care, as that is considered a Medical service under your medical plan. You can use your EAP benefit any time, even if you’ve already started services under your insurance or cash-pay. They do not back pay, but as long as the service received is within the dates of your authorization #, there is no cost to you. And, if your EAP is a company that we are not in network with, let us know, and we can try to see if we can be added as a provider so you can use it!
