Two pieces of legislation, one from the House and one from the Senate, relating to mental health issues have recently passed. It is the latest step in a seven-year effort to craft a mental-health parity bill requiring insurance plans to match mental-health benefits with those for other medical conditions. The next challenge is to reconcile the two bills.

How do mental health issues affect productivity in the workplace?

• 222.7 million days of work are lost each year because of absences and problems pertaining to depression, costing companies $51.5 billion. (National Institute of Mental Health)
• Employees with depression who received support were 40% more likely to recover and 70% more like to stay employed, compared to a control group. (Journal of the American Medical Association 9/07)
• 9% of employees felt anxious or depressed, and those employees accounted for 40% of lost productivity. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)

Whatever form the final bill takes, it will cost employers more. However the payoff should come with increased productivity in the work place. From the study in the above journal, employees with the support program worked an average of two more hours a week than the control group. That came out to a $1,800 gain per employee, compared with the program’s cost of $100 to $400 per employee.