ABSTRACT
Employee Assistance Program (EAP) refers to employer-sponsored counseling and intervention services aimed at assisting employees with substance abuse, mental health, legal, financial, family, or other problems that impact worker productivity or safety. Estimates vary, but there may be well over twenty thousand separate EAPs today, with the majority provided by vendor organizations. Increasingly, an EAP product has become a mainstay of MBC companies, offered along side or integrated with Point-of-Service products for the employer market and exclusive provider products for the HMO market. Some employers have structured their EAP services as a mandatory access point to mental health and substance abuse treatment services. Others have purchased EAP designs that feature short-term counseling aspects, described later in this chapter.
