National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions and HR Policy Association Release Resource

WASHINGTON – August 29, 2023 – To help employers and other healthcare purchasers improve access and quality of mental health benefits for employees and their family members the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions and HR Policy Association developed a resource for use in engaging with and managing behavioral health vendors.

The Behavioral Health Vendor Engagement Template supplements questions that may be included in ongoing mental health vendor management discussions and performance improvement efforts. 

“If we are to realize industry improvements in access and quality of mental health services, more employers need to ask the right questions and have comparable service provider performance standards,” said National Alliance President and CEO Michael Thompson. “This template can help to accelerate efforts to standardize higher expectations within the behavioral health marketplace.”

An outcome of the Path Forward Voice of the Purchaser on Mental and Behavioral Health employer survey conducted earlier this year, the resource is not intended to be comprehensive but to supplement questions that might otherwise be included in ongoing vendor management discussions as well as in the vendor selection process.

The resource focuses on the following areas:

• Network and other access such as mental health parity, tele-behavioral health, denial rates and health equity
• Quality of care management
• Integration of behavioral health into primary care
• Workplace mental health support

“HR Policy Association is pleased to have contributed to simplifying and standardizing the process of selecting mental health vendors with the Behavioral Health Vendor Engagement Template.” said Mark Wilson, vice president of health and employment policy and chief economist for the HR Policy Association. “We encourage our members and all large employers to use this tool to ensure that the right questions are being asked when selecting and evaluating vendors, all with a goal of helping to provide better care for employees and their dependents.”

About HR Policy Association

HR Policy Association is the lead organization representing Chief Human Resource Officers at major employers. The Association consists of nearly 400 of the largest corporations doing business in the United States and globally, and these employers are represented in the organization by their most senior human resource executive. Collectively, their companies employ more than 10 million employees in the United States, over nine percent of the private sector workforce, and 20 million employees worldwide. These senior corporate officers participate in the Association because of their commitment to improving the direction of human resource policy. To learn more, visit hrpolicy.org.

About National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions

The National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions (National Alliance) is the only nonprofit, purchaser-led organization with a national and regional structure dedicated to driving health and healthcare value across the country. Its members represent private and public sector, nonprofit, and Taft-Hartley organizations, and more than 45 million Americans, spending over $400 billion annually on healthcare. To learn more, visit nationalalliancehealth.org.

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