Nearly 1 in 5 people with chronic physical conditions develop mental health issues like depression and anxiety. Of people with severe mental health conditions, 37% also have long term physical health conditions. It was these trends and Prudential’s experience with its own book of disability claimants that led the insurance company to enhance its disability claims management process in 2021. Prudential’s claims management process is now designed to address both physical and mental wellness to help claimants return to work successfully.
It was challenging for Prudential to find a way—at scale—to proactively identify claimants with mental wellness needs and provide them with resources to improve their overall wellness and return to work. To help deliver a solution with efficiency and scale, Prudential engaged with NeuroFlow in 2021 to provide claimants with self-guided mental wellness tools, resources, and clinical assessments via its app.
“Employers are at a place where they have to prioritize the mental health of their workers or they’re going to lose them,” says Kristin Tugman, VP of holistic wellness and health and productivity at Prudential in an interview with Employee Benefit News, discussing the initiative. “It really is about the pillars of raising awareness, reducing stigma, improving access to care, and equalizing the conversation around mental and physical health.”
As a result of implementing this technology solution, Prudential was able to identify that 19% of its physical disability claimants had co-occurring mental wellness needs. With that insight, it revamped its disability claims management process, ensuring claimants received access to the appropriate mental wellness resources or additional support from Prudential case managers to help them return to work.
