Purchaser Preferences in Strategies to Improve Depression Treatment

Objective: As healthcare purchasers, employer support for high quality depression treatment is vital because models which improve outcomes also increase healthcare costs. This study compared employer perceptions about two strategies they can undertake to improve depression treatment: (1) purchasing a depression product and (2) encouraging health plans to improve their HEDIS scores for outpatient depression care. Methods: Health benefit professionals representing 325 companies across the country evaluated the adoption potential of both strategies. The analysis used paired t-tests to compare adoption potential, followed by conditional logit analyses to examine organizational predictors. Results: Over 45% of employers noted that both strategies have better potential for adoption than recent programs the company has adopted. While employers showed no preference for one strategy over the other, adoption potential differed by perceived prevalence of depression, distributed insurance risk, and risk tolerance for benefit innovation. Conclusions: A sizable proportion of employers interested in depression in the workplace acknowledge their capacity to undertake two strategies to enhance quality of care. Efforts to increase employer involvement in assuring workers get improved depression treatment need to consider employer preference, given that both strategies can improve depression outcomes.