The Canadian National Behavioral Consortium Industry Profile of External EAP Vendors

Abstract

A secondary analysis of data provided the initial examination of comparative metrics pertaining to Canadian employee assistance program (EAP) vendors. Contracts held by the 12 participating organizations ranged from 10 to 6,500 with lives covered ranging from 300,000 to 6.3 million, underscoring not only the diverse nature of EAP vendors in Canada but issues with comparing data among such vastly different providers. The most prominent model of service provision was capped EAP counseling which led to an average of 3.1 counseling sessions per client with only one vendor having a mean of greater than four. The majority of counseling offered through Canadian EAP vendors is provided by fee for service affiliate counselors. All client satisfaction scores were positive; however, the vast majority of clients did not complete any type of evaluation leaving both EAP vendors and client organizations with no substantive knowledge of the impact of the service. In the comparatively small EAP market that Canada represents, it was not surprising to learn that the greatest business concern of the vendors was product pricing, especially as ten percent of EAP services were being provided as part of larger bundled benefits plans and thus there was no actual direct cost for the EAP.