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Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER. 2021 K Street NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20006 P: (202) 296-6922 F: (202) 296-0025 www.ensuringsolutions.org. About Ensuring Solutions.

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Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER

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  1. Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol ProblemsTHE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER 2021 K Street NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20006 P: (202) 296-6922 F: (202) 296-0025 www.ensuringsolutions.org

  2. About Ensuring Solutions • Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems is a new research initiative at the George Washington University Medical Center, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts • Goal: Increase access to treatment for individuals with alcohol problems • Method: Provide research-based information and tools to help curb the avoidable health care and other costs associated with alcohol use and improve access to treatment for Americans who need it.

  3. Why treating alcohol problems matters to business • 7.4% of full time workers drink in ways that put them at risk of alcohol-related health problems and reduced productivity • Miss work almost twice as often as other workers • Seek emergency department care 70% more often • Stay in the hospital 3 days longer • $26 billion in health care costs each year • 51 million extra workdays missed each year

  4. How do alcohol problems cost businesses? • Lower productivity • Lost workdays • Extra health care use • Other costs: • Workers compensation and disability • Accidents and damage • Turnover and worker replacement • Diverted supervisory and co-worker time • Workplace friction • Family disruption

  5. Why Businesses May be Overlooking Alcohol Problems • Spending on alcohol treatment has gone down – now less than 0.1% of health care costs • Few workers and family members use their health benefits • Less than 0.3% of beneficiaries • EAPs offered as response to alcohol and other work and family life problems • Few workers and family members use their EAP for alcohol problems • Less than 0.5% of beneficiaries

  6. What is the Alcohol Cost Calculator? • New, easy-to-use, on-line tool from Ensuring Solutions • Computes the costs of untreated alcohol problems to individual companies • Identifies steps that employers can take • Research-based, using federal government data • No cost, anonymous • Endorsed by: Washington Business Group on Health, National Business Coalition on Health, NIAAA, SAMHSA, JoinTogether, CADCA, Partnership for a Drug Free America

  7. Why an Alcohol Cost Calculator? • A simple, quick, easy way for a company to quantify its costs. • Demonstrates the value of investing in identifying and treating alcohol problems: • Businesses will save money in the long run and keep workers on the job and productive by investing in solutions • Addressing the problem doesn’t cost that much and the benefits are substantial to businesses, families and communities.

  8. How it works… • Go to www.alcoholcostcalculator.org • Identify your business from one of 10 categories • Enter the number of employees • A customized report, available instantly, details the findings, including suggested steps to take.

  9. What Businesses Can Do to Make Their Workplaces Safer, Healthier and More Productive • Comprehensive Health Insurance Benefits • Average cost of upgrading is around $5 per beneficiary per year • Equitable co-pays, deductibles, limits. Co-pays less than $10/session. • It is being done! • Managing health plan benefits • National Business Coalition on Health’s National Standardized Request for Information at www.nbch.org • Confidential screening and brief intervention • Encourage primary care screening and treatment • Monitoring utilization and outcomes

  10. What more can be done? • Employee Assistance Programs • Two question alcohol quantity screener on all EAP calls • Include alcohol screening in Wellness, Health Risk Appraisals and Stress Management Programs • Work with other businesses and health care providers • Use EAP and Health Plan data to build the case for the effectiveness of employment-based alcohol treatment in business terms: • Avoidable health care costs • Avoidable productivity losses • Avoidable absenteeism

  11. Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol ProblemsGEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER Eric Goplerud, Ph.D., Director 2021 K Street NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20006 P: (202) 296-6922 F: (202) 296-0025 www.ensuringsolutions.org

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