{"id":6318,"date":"2020-03-02T13:17:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T18:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/?p=6318"},"modified":"2020-03-11T11:10:34","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T15:10:34","slug":"compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction","title":{"rendered":"Compassion: A new treatment for addiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Will Bunch | Human Resource Executive<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the opioid crisis grows, more employers are pivoting toward connecting workers to treatment and, ultimately, keeping them on the job.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The email that showed up\nunexpectedly one day in February 2017 in the inbox of Roger Krone, the CEO of\nthe large McLean, Va.-based national-security contractor Leidos, had a subject\nline that read, simply: \u201cA father\u2019s request.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The employee who sent the\nemail\u2014John Hindman, a public affairs adviser\u2014leapfrogged the normal chain of\ncommand in going straight to the chief executive of a 33,000-employee Fortune\n500 company. But Hindman\u2019s anguish over the death of his 30-year-old son, Sean,\nwho\u2019d died the previous September from an overdose after battling an opioid\naddiction, convinced the employee that it was worth any risk to plead with his\nboss to do something about the opioid epidemic.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRoger is also a father, and it really hit him emotionally,\u201d recalls Melissa Koskovich, the senior vice president for communication and marketing at Leidos who became the firm\u2019s point person on its opioid efforts. The CEO reached out to Hindman that day and soon announced that\u2014at a time when many companies were still denying or ignoring the extent of the drug crisis\u2014Leidos would instead aim to be a role model for other companies. Six months later, Krone wrote in a letter to all Leidos employees that he\u2019d accepted Hindman\u2019s challenge to make a major response to the opioid epidemic that was inevitably affecting workers and their families, and that \u201cit has to start with compassion and open dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leidos wasn\u2019t the only\ncompany realizing as the 2010s came to a close that both the size and the scope\nof the opioid crisis called for a very different approach to drug abuse than\nthe tack taken by most U.S. firms in the latter 20th century. That had been an\nera of aggressive drug testing, with many workplaces\u2014especially those in\nsafety-sensitive industries\u2014adopting \u201czero tolerance\u201d toward employees caught\nusing illegal drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the buzzword is\nso-called \u201csecond-chance\u201d approaches for employees suspected of falling prey to\nopioid addiction, with human resource executives now tasked with developing\nprotocols around compassion, treatment and keeping workers on the job. Some of\nthat stems from the understanding that many drug problems start with a doctor\u2019s\ninitial legal prescription for painkillers, such as OxyContin or Percocet, but\ncan soon spiral out of control. In addition to treatment and recovery, HR\nleaders are also looking at changes in company health plans or enhanced\ntraining, aimed at stopping addiction before it starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Company Costs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Leidos developed its new\nstrategy on opioids, company officials realized that a simple change in the\ncompany\u2019s prescription-drug plan\u2014mandating that any first-time prescription for\npainkillers cover no more than seven days\u2014could greatly reduce the chances that\na pain patient would develop an addiction. Along with that one-week supply,\npatients get an education letter about opioid addiction and even a Deterra bag,\nwhich dissolves unused pills for disposal in the trash. Koskovich says fewer\nthan one in 10 Leidos workers seeks to extend a prescription beyond the seven\ndays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cost up front for the\ncompany,\u201d Koskovich says of the disposal bags and the related education\nefforts, \u201cbut the employee benefits, and it saves money on the back end\u201d in\nlower pharmaceutical expenses for Leidos. The firm has plowed some of those\nsavings into anti-opioid efforts that have included a documentary film called\nCircle of Addiction, narrated by actor Jim Wahlberg, as well as new partnerships\nwith anti-drug nonprofits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts say smarter and more\ncompassionate responses from companies and their HR executives to the opioid\ncrisis\u2014which, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,\nclaimed an alarming 47,600 deaths due to overdose in 2017\u2014are partly a belated\nrealization that the workplace may be the best place to detect an addiction\nproblem and intervene. That\u2019s because the economic and psychological importance\nof holding onto a job often motivates people in the throes of addiction in a\nway that appeals from friends and family may not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe workplace is where you\nspend most of your day,\u201d says James Reidy, an attorney at New Hampshire-based\nSheehan Phinney Bass & Green PA and an expert on company drug-abuse policies.\nHe says employees whose opioid problems become evident on the job \u201care running\nthe risk of losing income and benefits\u2014as well as their comforts and\nshelter\u2014and if that person isn\u2019t so much in the grip of addiction, they\nrecognize they could lose it all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, companies like\nLeidos with aggressive intervention strategies still seem like the exception\nrather than the rule. In 2018, the Hartford Financial Services Group surveyed\n500 HR executives, along with 2,000 other employees, and found a disconnect:\nSome 67% knew, or expected, that opioid abuse was affecting their company, yet\n64% admitted they felt unprepared to deal with the problem. Most survey takers\nalso conceded a lack of knowledge about opioid addiction or how to identify a\nco-worker with a drug problem. And some 31% of people managers said a worker\nwith an addiction problem is typically fired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a growing number of CEOs\nand their HR leaders are urging a radically different approach, not only to\nfoster a more compassionate workplace but also because of the economic toll of\nfiring experienced employees and hiring and training replacements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusiness leaders need to\nalso shift their mindset about how to respond to addiction in the workplace,\u201d\nwrote Kirt Walker, CEO of Nationwide Insurance, recently in an op-ed for\nFortune magazine. \u201cWhile a one-chance-only policy may seem logical, it may\nactually be more costly than other alternatives in terms of training new\nworkers and lost productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike some major companies,\nNationwide\u2014headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, and an employer of 34,000\npeople\u2014decided several decades ago that getting its most valued employees into\ndrug treatment and counseling was preferable to a zero-tolerance policy. What\u2019s\nchanged, according to the firm\u2019s HR leaders, is the extent of the opioid\ncrisis\u2014especially in its home state of Ohio, which, in 2017, had the\nsecond-highest overdose rate in the U.S. Kathleen Herath, Nationwide\u2019s\nassociate vice president for wellbeing and safety, says the firm has been not\nonly fine-tuning its in-house procedures\u2014such as better training for managers\non identifying workers who may have a drug problem\u2014but also sharing its best\npractices with other Ohio firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chad Jester, Nationwide\u2019s\nvice president of corporate citizenship, who runs the Nationwide Foundation,\nnotes the firm\u2019s key role in launching the Ohio Opioid Alliance, a coalition of\nbusinesses and nonprofits that aims to both share best practices and raise\nawareness. The insurance giant in 2019 donated $2 million to launch an ad\ncampaign depicting how the drug crisis affects a fictional and seemingly\nidyllic town called \u201cDenial, Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are trying to be a\nconduit of great information and to extend the network,\u201d says Jester, who has\nalso worked with the National Safety Council to promote a free Opioids At Work\nEmployer Toolkit and better data sharing among businesses. \u201cThat\u2019s what\nawareness, education and prevention is all about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modeling a New Approach<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, as a consensus grows\namong employers for a more compassionate, second-chance-oriented response to\nthe opioid crisis, there is also growing agreement among experts about what\nsuch workplace programs should look like. The newer approaches place an\nemphasis on worker education and honest dialogue, management training, smarter\nuse of data, and working with insurers and doctors to head off addiction before\nit starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are some of the common\nthreads:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using big data.<\/strong> Increasingly, companies are looking at how to best collect\ndata\u2014typically through their health plans\u2014on both the extent of the potential\nopioid-abuse problem in the workforce as well as ways to confidentially\nidentify and reach out to individual employees who might have a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First Choice Health, a firm\nin the Pacific Northwest that\u2019s owned by doctors and hospitals to promote\nbetter and more efficient care, recently started offering more than 100\ncompanies a service to identify high-risk employees\u2014such as those who\u2019ve been\nprescribed opioids and sedatives for 60 or more days during the prior three months\u2014and\nconnect them with counseling and other services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. John Robinson, chief\nmedical officer at First Choice Health, says a computer code targeting opioid\nprescriptions and related claims \u201cproduced some eye-opening data\u201d that\u2019s helped\ncreate benchmarks to determine which companies have a problem. He says the data\nhas cut down on over-prescriptions while steering workers into EAP programs.\n\u201cIt\u2019s important to catch them,\u201d he says, \u201cwhen they\u2019re ready to get help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New approaches to hiring.<\/strong> Richmond, Ind., is another community in the American Midwest\nhard hit by opioid abuse. Like other local employers there, Belden\u2014a global\nmanufacturer of security products\u2014was struggling to fill vacancies with so many\nprospective workers failing drug tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of automatically\nrejecting these applicants, Belden came up with a program called Pathways to\nEmployment that\u2014at an average cost of $16,000 per person\u2014connects candidates\nwith personalized drug treatment and, aided by repeated drug testing, eases\nthem into the company before moving them into higher-paying safety-sensitive\njobs when they\u2019ve shown they\u2019re free of addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innovative approaches to\nhealthcare. Dave Chase, head of the reform-minded healthcare consultancy Heath\nRosetta and author of the 2019 book The Opioid Crisis Wake-Up Call, says that\n2% of the American gross domestic product is spent on treating lower-back\npain\u2014not with therapy or other effective treatments but by simply prescribing\nopioid painkillers. One out of six of those patients, Chase says, will become\naddicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is entirely a\nself-inflicted wound from our healthcare system,\u201d says Chase, who notes the\ncurrent fee-for-service regime has invited over-prescription of opioids. He\u2019s\nworked with companies such as Rosen Hotels to change healthcare models to a\nvalue-based system that rewards better outcomes\u2014and which has drastically\nslashed opioid prescriptions, curbing the risks of addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Train managers on when and how to intervene.<\/strong> Experts such as Norbert\nAlicea, vice president for EAP and work\/life services at Health Advocate, a\nPlymouth Meeting, Pa.-based firm that works with employers on healthcare\nsolutions, says it\u2019s important that managers learn both the signs that a worker\nmight be having an opioid-related problem and then how to approach them, if\nnecessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn employee may come out like a bull in a china shop [if confronted],\nand you need to know how to deal with it or not deal with it,\u201d says Alicea.\nMany firms, such as Nationwide or some of those advised by Alicea, assign the\nrole of having a difficult conversation with an employee not to a line manager\nbut a highly trained specialist, typically from the HR department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationwide\u2019s Herath says one\nsuch specialist in HR has become the point person for managing every employee\nwho enters an opioid-recovery program. \u201cShe\u2019s their lifeline,\u201d Herath explains.\n\u201cShe talks them though their random tests and what they have to do. The model\nwe created is that when someone needs help, we hold their hand and hold on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alicea says the best approach in addressing an employee suspected of\nopioid use is to couch the situation as a work problem\u2014that there are concerns\nabout safety or the worker\u2019s health\u2014rather than confronting it as a drug\nproblem. He also urges employers to think through every possible ramification,\nsuch as making sure there\u2019s transportation to a doctor\u2019s office to avoid the\nliability and safety risk of a drugged worker behind the wheel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts agree that it\u2019s complicated for many firms to develop a uniform, companywide policy around opioid abuse and recovery because many safety-sensitive jobs\u2014such as truck driver or aviation worker\u2014since 2018 have been covered by U.S. Department of Transportation regulations for opioid testing, with rigid protocols. But they also concur that finding strategies to get workers off opioids while keeping them employed are both cost-effective and humane. \u201cThe good employers remember that human resources is a two-way street,\u201d says Reidy, the New Hampshire employment attorney. Promoting wellness and recovery, he says, \u201cis investing in these people, while losing these people could be a casualty.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original article available at: https:\/\/hrexecutive.com\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\/<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, the buzzword is so-called \u201csecond-chance\u201d approaches for employees suspected of falling prey to opioid addiction, with human resource executives now tasked with developing protocols around compassion, treatment and keeping workers on the job. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":973,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[93,51,46,60],"class_list":["post-6318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","tag-bert-alicea","tag-employee-assistance","tag-health-advocate","tag-opioids"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nCompassion: A new treatment for addiction? | Health Advocate<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Compassion: A new treatment for addiction?\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today, the buzzword is so-called \u201csecond-chance\u201d approaches for employees suspected of falling prey to opioid addiction, with human resource executives now tasked with developing protocols around compassion, treatment and keeping workers on the job.\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Health Advocate\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/healthadvocateinc\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-02T18:17:00+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-11T15:10:34+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/ThinkstockPhotos-78746004-1024x1024.jpg\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1024\" \/>\r\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Courtney Prizer\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@healthadvocate\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@healthadvocate\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Courtney Prizer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Courtney Prizer\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/9984a3e06e0e3601b515b35fc5c9c0df\"},\"headline\":\"Compassion: A new treatment for addiction?\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-02T18:17:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-03-11T15:10:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\"},\"wordCount\":2049,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/ThinkstockPhotos-78746004.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Bert Alicea\",\"employee assistance\",\"health advocate\",\"opioids\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Article\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.healthadvocate.com\/site\/article\/compassion-a-new-treatment-for-addiction\",\"name\":\"Compassion: A new treatment for addiction? 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