Taking care of your mental health and wellness is more important than ever before. Mental health support is also a valuable—and critical—piece to a complete health care offering or benefits plan.
Mental health and wellness
Your mental health includes your emotional, psychological and social well-being. It also helps determine how you handle stress, relate to others and make choices. From time to time, it’s important to reflect on the state of your mental health. Using digital health care resources can help get you started on your journey to better mental wellness.
Digital access to care
Digital health care offers quick and efficient access to your health information and helps improve your quality of life in a way that works with your schedule. Having digital access to mental health resources allows you to connect with a health care professional without going to an office. By using telehealth or a mobile app, it’s much easier to find the quality mental health care you seek.
In addition, digital health care is intended to be convenient and user-friendly. You can often access care with just your smartphone. So, if you’re not technologically savvy, don’t worry!
Your mental health provider might already offer telehealth appointments, including video conferencing, email and telephone calls. Virtual consultations make scheduling simple and may help you get an appointment sooner. Using this type of visit, you can talk to your provider about symptoms and a treatment plan from the comfort of your own home.
Using telehealth and other resources
It’s not always easy to recognize mental health struggles right away, and that’s okay. There’s always help available when you need it most.
We’ve included some digital resources below.
Aetna Resources for LivingSM
Aetna Resources for Living is an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to support employees with everyday challenges and concerns. It provides them with confidential counseling and other online resources to help balance work, life and personal issues.
Talkspace
Talkspace helps connect users with a licensed counselor for a counseling session by text, video or audio message. Chat therapy can be useful to share concerns during busy times, like the weekend or workday, from just about anywhere.
Dialing or texting 988
By texting or calling 988, you’ll be connected to a local crisis center in your area offering mental health crisis support. There is currently a network of over 200 centers across the country. From here, trained crisis counselors are available 24/7 via phone, text, or an easy-to-use chat feature. Counselors are trained to listen, offer emotional support and provide mental health resources.
The new number launched in July and is a huge step toward expanding access to mental health services to meet a growing need.
Mental health screenings
Mental Health America offers information, resources and confidential mental health screenings for free. There are tests available for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, addiction and much more. Simply go to https://screening.mhanational.org to learn more.
More resources
Need some more options? If some of the above ones aren’t right for you, you can check out Teladoc® counseling services, BetterHelp online counseling or Cerebral® mental health services.
Check your health benefits
Finally, if you’re not sure where to start searching for mental health resources, checking your existing health plan is a good place to start. For instance, see if your benefits include telehealth, health coaching or online and digital resources for counseling with a therapist.
Meritain Health® members may have access to many of these programs.
Go digital today!
By making use of the resources at your disposal, you can stay well, protect your mental health, have better access to care—and live a happier, healthier life.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant as medical advice.
