By Melissa Nunez, LCSW, VP of Operations at CuraLinc
A few weeks ago, I recently participated on a panel at the Northeast Business Group on Health, "Resilience Rebuilt," alongside Jay Meyers, Chief Commercial Officer at Rula, and Chris Mosunic, PhD, Chief Clinical Officer at Calm, with Sandi Stein of Brown Brothers Harriman moderating.
Our conversation started from a premise most benefits leaders will recognize. Access has expanded and stigma is fading, but workforce mental wellbeing is still a work in progress. We spent the session on the strategies that are closing the gap, from EAP modernization and clinical integration to serious mental illness, and on a question that matters to every benefits leader: what should you demand from a behavioral health partner, and how do you make sure the investment delivers measurable value and sustainable spend? Five things stood out, each one something you can ask for, measure, and hold a partner to.
Access has improved, but the harder problems now sit in the details. Employees still have to sort through complex benefits, find providers, and figure out their cost share before they ever book a session. Those steps are where people give up.
Getting someone into care within a week comes down to a few things working together: a benefit that is easy to reach by phone or online at any hour, someone in the member's corner to help navigate options, and confirmation up front that the provider is in network and what the cost sharing will be. Lower-cost outpatient therapy and psychiatric services, delivered by the right provider, can lower total cost of care over time. The first provider a member sees is not always the right one, and members should have permission to keep looking until the fit is right. A good provider match, which we typically refer to clinically as therapeutic alliance, makes it more likely that someone will continue care and reach a better outcome.
Employees bounce between apps, EAPs, therapy, and psychiatry, often landing in the wrong place first. The behavioral science behind nudges and smart defaults has been around for years, and it helps, but only if people know the benefit exists. Awareness remains the biggest hurdle any organization faces.
Two things move people to the right level of care. The first is bridges across benefits, so a member who lands in the wrong place gets routed back to the most appropriate support rather than staying stuck. The second is access to a clinician who can triage and help the member understand the solution, because there is no single fix that fits everyone. Sometimes the answer is therapy. Sometimes it is a resource, an online module, or a set of self-guided activities. Nudges do useful work by reminding people they have a benefit and surfacing information before someone has to dig for it, but the human component has to be there alongside the technology. The most successful programs carry both.
Behavioral health spend keeps climbing, and the industry has leaned on utilization to define value: more sessions, more calls, more interactions. Usage tells you people know the benefit exists and are willing to use it, which matters, especially given how many traditional EAPs have historically sat at engagement rates too low to reach the level of need in most employee populations. But a benefit being used does not equal improvement, resolution, or new skills.
This is largely a matter of design. Many digital-first EAP and mental health models are oriented toward sustained activity rather than building resilience and resolving need. When more sessions mean more value, a vendor has no reason to get a member better and every reason to keep them in care. That misalignment shows up as budget volatility for the employer. The fix is to tie accountability to impact instead of activity: care matched to real need and delivered for the right duration, reporting built around resolution and clinical improvement using clinically validated tools, and contract terms that hold a partner to outcomes.
Most employers now run four to six vendors in the behavioral health space, and the reason is straightforward: they are trying to take care of their people, and no single vendor has covered every need. That reality raises three practical questions.
The first is consolidation. How much of that stack could a single program reasonably carry? An EAP that covers more of the range, standard mental health and work-life support, specialty and complex care, and even physical or financial wellbeing, gives members fewer front doors to find and gives you fewer vendors to govern. Consolidating where the care genuinely connects reduces the coordination burden for your team and the confusion for your people.
The second is integration. Benefits have to work together to cover the whole person, which starts with a (single) clinical front door. A licensed clinician triaging at intake routes members to the right level of care from the first contact, whether that is inside the program or out to a specialized vendor you already have in place.
The third is accountability. Ask a partner to show you how quality is actually governed: how providers are credentialed and vetted before they see a member, what clinical oversight and case review sit behind the network, how outcomes are measured with validated tools, and which performance standards, from speed to care through case resolution, the partner reports against and holds itself to. A partner that can answer those questions in detail is one carrying the accountability burden for you.
Managers often have the first opportunity to spot that something is wrong. They notice patterns of decline, absenteeism, or a change in someone they work with every day. The point is not to turn a manager into a clinician or ask them to take on an employee's problems. It is to give them the training and confidence to have a frank, supportive conversation: to say they have noticed something, point to the program that can help, and explain how to connect to it. When managers know their role in early intervention and feel equipped to have that conversation, people get connected to care sooner.
The through-line across the panel was accountability. Ask your vendors to prove that members improve, not just that they engage. Make access simple and confirm that care is in network before a member commits. Route people to the right level of care with a mix of smart technology and human guidance. Consolidate where you can, connect what remains through a clinical front door, and hold someone answerable for quality and outcomes. Equip managers to notice and to open the door to support. Each of these is something an employer can ask for, measure, and hold a partner to.
CuraLinc's resilience-based care model is built around these same principles: easy access, guided support, the right care for the right duration, and verified outcomes measured with validated clinical tools. If you want to talk through how these ideas apply to your program, let’s connect.