What Is an EAP (Employee Assistance Program)? How Private Is It?
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An employee assistance program (EAP) is a free benefit that helps employees address issues affecting their work performance and personal well-being.
The services you get through an EAP are nearly always free. The goal of any service an EAP offers is to make it easier for you, the employee, to get the help you need to be able to do your job well. Your employer hopes you will use the EAP to get help with a tricky issue that might otherwise cause you to perform poorly at work, miss days, or even have to quit your job entirely.
How Can an EAP Help?
The primary way an EAP helps is through offering free short-term counseling. However, many EAPs offer additional services including:
- Free referrals to outside providers if you need longer-term mental health care;
- Free trainings and workshops at your place of employment;
- Free online and offline behavioral health information;
- Free 24/7 confidential helplines;
- Free financial or legal advice from financial or legal professionals; and
- Free social service referrals to help you find child care, elder care, or other social services you may need.
Most EAP programs limit the number of counseling sessions you can get. (The average is about five sessions.) However, it’s important to know that in most cases, there isn’t a lifetime or even an annual limit. The number of sessions allotted by an EAP is usually per issue. This means you can get two rounds or more of sessions a year if new issues come up in your life to address.
What Issues Can an EAP Help You Address?
Getting counseling through an EAP program can help in a surprising number of situations. It can give you:
- Just the assistance you need to resolve a specific problem that’s come up at work or home;
- A safe place to explore an issue and develop an action plan that you can follow on your own afterward; or
- A way to dip your toe into therapy if you’ve never tried it before and want to see what it’s all about.
And if you need longer-term care, your EAP can help you find a local provider that’s right for you.
Therapists who work for EAPs must abide by the same confidentiality requirements as any other therapist. They are not allowed to disclose your information without your consent (except in cases where you disclose child or elder abuse or an intent to harm yourself or others—which are exceptions to confidentiality that apply to all therapists, not just EAP therapists).
Your boss and HR get generic reports of how many people at a particular job site are using EAP services, but they are not sent the names of employees who are getting EAP sessions. The only way they could be notified of your attendance is if you ask your EAP therapist to send that information to them and sign a release.
Overall, we think EAPs are an underused resource and that more people should use them. The main reason people don't is that they misunderstand what they're for and think they're some sort of "spying service" for managers or HR to keep tabs on you.
But that's not what they are!
In fact, most companies choose to offer EAPs because they can improve a lot of employee outcomes for not a lot of money. Their purpose is to help you stay in your job and do well at it. The fringe benefit for you is that the way EAPs do that is by helping you improve your overall well-being.
So, if you need help with an issue that’s come up at work or home, we encourage you to call your EAP’s confidential 24/7 helpline or request a session through your company intranet. The help you need might be only a call or click away.
Most people whose job has an employee assistance program (EAP) never use it. The risks seem too high and the payoffs too small. But is this a fair assessment of this free benefit, or are people missing out on getting good mental health help for free?
OpenCounseling is here to answer all your questions about EAPs. Read on to learn what EAPs are, how they work, whether they’re really confidential, and how one might be able to help you.
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What Is an EAP?
An EAP is a free benefit that helps employees address issues that affect their work performance and personal well-being. An EAP primarily focuses on providing mental health help, but many also provide services and tools that can help you solve practical, financial, legal, and social problems.
What Services Do EAPs Provide?
While each EAP is different, many offer the following services:
- Free online and offline information on topics related to mental health and well-being;
- Free short-term individual counseling to address personal and behavioral health issues;
- Free on-site trainings, “lunch-and-learns,” and workshops on topics related to employee well-being and mental health;
- Free 24/7 confidential helplines you can call anonymously for advice and for referrals to the right kind and level of care;
- Free phone-based or face-to-face consultations with legal or financial professionals for help with legal or financial questions or issues; and
- Free access to online, phone-based, or in-person help with finding child care, elder care, or other social services you may need.
Employee assistance programs also sometimes help managers solve organizational challenges by providing managerial consultation and training. This helps managers learn how to effectively address the emotional and interpersonal issues their employees face. When necessary, managers may ask EAP staff to help employees cope with tragedies in the workplace or wider community.
The goal of any service an EAP offers is to make it easier for you, the employee, to get the help you need to be able to do your job well. Your employer hopes you will use the EAP to get help with a tricky issue that might otherwise cause you to perform poorly at work, miss days, or even have to quit entirely.
Providing an EAP costs your employer way less than having to hire and train new workers. It is, ultimately, self-serving for the company to have one, but not because they want or need to use it to spy on you. They just hope it will keep you happier and more productive than you might be without it.
What Kind of Mental Health Services Does an EAP Provide?
The vast majority of EAP sessions are voluntary, confidential sessions employees seek out for themselves. The way EAPs help you address these issues is primarily through short-term counseling.
What Issues Do EAPs Address?
Employee assistance programs can help you tackle a wide range of issues. Through a combination of counseling, education, and other services, EAPs can help you address:
- Mild to moderate depression and anxiety;
- Other mild to moderate mental health issues;
- Problems or issues related to substance use;
- Difficulties managing stress at work or at home;
- Relationship conflicts at home or in the community;
- Conflicts or problems with co-workers or bosses;
- Issues related to grief, loss, and bereavement;
- Challenges solving practical problems at work or home, such as
- Figuring out how to get help with child or elder care,
- Addressing legal problems or questions, or
- Making financial decisions; and
- Other emotional or personal challenges, such as
- Facing a major obstacle or plateau in your career,
- Working on personal growth or self-care, or
- Expanding your social support system.
In rare cases, employers may refer you to an EAP to address a personal or performance issue at work. For example, your boss might refer you for “mandatory sessions” if you fail a random drug test.
However, there are tricky legal issues around whether employers can actually make you attend the EAP. In many cases, if they ask, it’s an easy choice to attend a free service that could save your job or repair your relationship with your boss. Ultimately, though, it’s up to you.
How Employee Assistance Programs Work
There are two main types of EAPs: on-site and off-site. (Some EAPs are a hybrid of these two types.)
In an on-site EAP, the counselors and other EAP staff are employees of your company. They have an office in one of your company buildings.
In an off-site EAP, your employer contracts with outside professionals to provide EAP services. These professionals accept referrals from your company and provide EAP services from another location in the community. (In the case of mental health services, that location is usually a private practice office or a community mental health agency.)
Most companies use off-site EAPs. But in either case, the process of getting EAP services is usually pretty simple.
How Do You Connect with EAP Services?
Somewhere in your employee documents or intranet, you’ll find the number for your EAP. This is usually a 24/7 helpline. (Some helplines offer only crisis-level services outside of normal business hours, but nearly all answer calls around the clock.)
All you have to do is call and explain what you’re looking for help with. The person who answers the phone will be able to:
- Give you advice or support that will help you right away,
- Assist you in setting up an appointment with an EAP counselor, or
- Give you a referral to an outside resource if you need more long-term or intensive help than the EAP can provide.
It’s important to know that in most cases, the services you get from an EAP will be completely free. There may be time limits to certain services—for example, you may only be allowed a 30-minute consult with a lawyer or a limited number of sessions with a counselor. But anything within the limits outlined in your EAP documents should be free. That’s just how EAPs are set up: they’re meant to be easy and relatively painless to use.
What Kind of Therapy Can You Get From an EAP?
Most EAPs offer short-term therapy or counseling only. The number of sessions provided varies from EAP to EAP. Some offer as little as three sessions, while some offer as many as 8 to 12. Based on our research, the average number of EAP sessions seems to be about five.
It’s important to understand that in most cases, though, there is not a lifetime or even an annual limit on the number of sessions you get. The number of sessions allotted by an EAP is usually per issue.
For example, let’s say your EAP offers five sessions per issue, and you use five sessions to get help navigating a workplace conflict. If six months later, you need help with personal financial stress, you should be able to get another five sessions to address that.
What Kind of Therapy Do You Get at an EAP?
Because EAP counseling is short-term and focused on solving specific problems one at a time, most EAP therapists will use therapy methods that do those things well. Two popular approaches that can effectively solve specific problems within a few sessions are:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and
- Short-term solution-focused therapy.
In general, go into EAP counseling expecting your therapist to start asking questions that will help them hone in on the specific problem you want to solve. Then expect them to immediately start working with you to solve it. They will help you identify your goals, figure out your strengths, recall what’s helped you before in similar situations, and identify shifts in thinking or perspective that might help you come up with a solution—all while providing the emotional support you need to tackle this problem.
Confidentiality and Vulnerability in EAPs
Concerns about confidentiality are a major reason many people hesitate to use EAP services. You probably aren’t comfortable with the idea of your boss or co-workers knowing the intimate details of your personal struggles, and you may feel suspicious about why your company even offers an EAP in the first place.
It can be confusing and stressful to try to figure out who can receive information about your sessions. You may worry your employer could take action against you if you admit to substance use, severe mental health issues, or other factors affecting your work during an EAP session. You may wonder if the therapist is truly working for you, the client. Anxiety around these issues may lead you to decide not to use your EAP at all.
This is a shame, because in most cases, this anxiety is unwarranted. Therapists working for EAPs are required to uphold the same standards of confidentiality and privacy as all other therapists. Providing services through an EAP doesn’t change the legal and ethical standards they must follow to maintain their license and uphold HIPAA law.
Rare Exceptions to Confidentiality in EAPs
Employee assistance programs are set up to provide as much anonymity as possible. Your name is not filed or sent to your employer if you call the helpline or attend an EAP session.
Exceptions to Confidentiality
There are only a few exceptions to confidentiality in an EAP. First, if you disclose child or elder abuse or that you are at risk of harming yourself or others, your therapist is required to report that information.
This reporting is required of all therapists, by the way, not just therapists who work for EAPs. In the case of an EAP, that information may be reported to your employer, but in most cases, it is reported directly to the relevant law enforcement or social services agency.
Otherwise, any breach of confidentiality in an EAP would be incidental or accidental. For example, if your company uses an on-site EAP, there could be a risk of co-workers seeing you walk into the EAP office and gossiping about it.
And while EAPs do not send the names or employee numbers of EAP participants to executives or HR, they do send out utilization reports that indicate the location and job level of people who are using the EAP. This is done only to let management know how the service is being used and whether they might need to expand or reduce it at certain locations.
In large companies, it’s unlikely this would reveal your identity. However, in small companies, your location and job level might be enough for HR or managers to figure out who you are.
Still, even if they guess it’s you, they’re not supposed to do anything with that information. Laws like HIPAA and the Americans with Disabilities Act outline severe consequences for any employer that would try to use your use of EAP services against you.
And why would they?
The reason your employer pays for an EAP in the first place is in the hope that employees will use it to get the help they need. Anything is possible, and toxic workplace politics can play out in all kinds of ways, but the risk of negative employment outcomes from using an EAP in most situations is very low.
One final exception to confidentiality in EAPs is if you are referred to one by a manager or HR in response to a disciplinary or performance issue. In this case, if you agree to attend EAP sessions to address the issue (it is actually quite tricky legally for your employer to require this of you), you may be asked to sign a release allowing the EAP counselor to confirm your attendance and progress to whomever referred you. In nearly every case, this does not authorize the counselor to disclose any details of what you share in your sessions—just to confirm you showed up.
Again, in the therapy world, disclosure of personal information is strictly regulated to protect your right to privacy. If a therapist violates your confidentiality, that is grounds for a complaint and could even lead to them losing their license.
So, Who Should Go to an EAP?
Going to an EAP can be a great choice in many situations. You might be surprised at how many problems you can actually solve within the number of sessions you’re given. And when you can’t resolve an issue within those sessions, your EAP therapist can still help you assess your situation and give you a good referral.
In fact, one of your EAP counselor’s jobs is to quickly figure out whether they can help you within the allotted time or whether they need to refer you out. In many cases, they determine that they can help you. A few sessions may give you all the help you need to make an important decision, resolve a conflict, or overcome anxiety around a specific issue.
Short-Term Therapy Works!
You can make a lot of progress on a single, specific problem by focusing your attention on it and collaborating with someone else in the problem-solving process. And even if you can’t completely resolve your issue within the number of sessions your EAP allows, you’ll usually make much more progress than you would have made if you’d been completely on your own.
Another way to think about an EAP is that it gives you a safe place to explore an issue and see where you want to go with it next. It can be a way of dipping your toe into therapy if you’ve never tried it before and want to see what it’s all about. Given that the service is free, and that it renews annually (if not every time a new issue comes up in your life), there’s little risk in giving it a try.
Another potential perk of using an EAP is fast service. The turnaround time between requesting an appointment and getting one can be faster through an EAP than when you’re trying to find a private practice therapist on your own. So, it can be a great way to get immediate help to address an issue that needs your attention right away.
Can I Continue Seeing My EAP Therapist?
Whether you can continue seeing your EAP therapist on your own after you’ve used up your EAP sessions mostly depends on whether your company has an on-site or off-site EAP program. In most cases, with an off-site program (which most EAPs are), you should be able to keep seeing your therapist. The only issue would be figuring out whether that therapist accepts your insurance and, if not, whether you can afford their standard rate.
In an on-site program, your therapist is just as much an employee of your company as you are. The terms of their employment probably don’t allow them to provide anything other than EAP sessions or to accept direct pay from you. However, it’s always worth asking, as policies can vary from company to company. Many companies now have hybrid EAPs staffed by a mix of on-site and off-site staff and some counselors may be contractors that can continue seeing you off-site.
Conclusion
Employee assistance programs can help in a surprising number of situations. They can give you just the assistance you need to resolve a specific problem that’s come up at home or at work. They can help you develop an action plan and decide on next steps. And even when you need longer-term care, they can help you find a provider that’s right for you.
The services you get in an EAP are nearly always free. Your employer wants you to use the service to ensure you’re at your best at work. And therapists who work for EAPs must abide by the same confidentiality requirements as any other therapist.
Except in a few rare cases, no one else at your company should know you're using EAP services at all.
If you know you want or need long-term therapy, and you can find a therapist in the community that you can afford to see, you may want to start there. Employee assistance programs are not a good place to look for long-term therapy for personal growth. Nor should you expect to completely resolve long-term or complicated mental health issues by going to an EAP. However, if you’re not completely sure what you need, an EAP counselor can help you figure that out, too.
Overall, we think EAPs are an underused resource and that more people should use them. The main reason people don’t is that they misunderstand what they’re for and think they’re some sort of “spying service” for managers or HR to keep tabs on you.
But that’s not what they are!
In fact, most companies choose to offer them because they can improve a lot of employee outcomes for not a lot of money. Their purpose is to help you stay in your job and do well at it. The fringe benefit for you is that the way EAPs do that is by helping you improve your overall well-being.
So, if you need help with an issue that’s come up at work or home, we encourage you to call your EAP’s confidential 24/7 helpline or request a session through your company intranet. The help you need might be only a call or click away.
Note: The original version of this article was written by Eric Patterson. This version has been updated, edited, and expanded by Stephanie Hairston.
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Stephanie Hairston
Stephanie Hairston is a freelance mental health writer who spent several years in the field of adult mental health before transitioning to professional writing and editing. As a clinical social worker, she provided group and individual therapy, crisis intervention services, and psychological assessments.