Avon’s Magellan Health Services Inc. and Hartford’s Aetna Inc. say they are rallying to the aid of America’s military service men and women with expanded access to mental health services and counseling.
Magellan, a health care outsourcing vendor, says during National Military Appreciation Month in May it has launched an initiative, Take Mental Health To Heart, in conjunction with the National Military Family Association and Horizon Healthcare Services Inc., to raise awareness about mental wellness topics impacting America’s warriors.
The goal, Magellan says, is to highlight the distinct and complex mental wellness issues that specifically affect the military community by striving to create an understanding of the military population’s challenges, while working to combat the stigma that too often accompanies mental illness.
Separately, Aetna Behavioral Health says its aim is essentially the same in backing Give an Hour, a nonprofit organization providing free counseling and other mental health services to military service men and women.
Aetna says it is recruiting volunteers from its network of over 104,000 behavioral health providers across the U.S. to provide free counseling to soldiers. Aetna’s own employees who are clinicians in Aetna Behavioral Health or the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) also will volunteer their time.
Louise Murphy, head of Aetna Behavioral Health, cited Rand Corp. study that 300,000 U.S. troops suffer from major depression or post-traumatic stress.
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