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Pacific Blue Cross partners with Homewood Health to deliver new EFAP service to its plan members

By Homewood Health - Sep 7th 2016
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VANCOUVER, BC – Pacific Blue Cross has announced Homewood Health as its new partner in the delivery of Employee Family Assistance Programs (EFAP) effective September 1, 2016.

Recent findings from The Conference Board of Canada reported that depression costs the economy at least $32.3 billion annually, while anxiety costs another $17.3 billion a year.Mental health issues lead directly to incrementally higher incidence of workplace injuries, conflicts, overall health concerns, substance abuse and other physical, emotional and social difficulties. Homewood Health is Canada’s leader in mental health and addiction services, with more than 130 years of clinical experience. The new Pacific Blue Cross EFAP offers plan members enhanced tools to cope with difficult life events before they evolve into more complex mental health and addiction issues.

“As part of our mission to improve health and wellbeing, our partnership with Homewood Health gives plan sponsors more tools to support members to be healthy, happy and productive at work,” says Shelley Kee, Senior Vice President of Group Business at Pacific Blue Cross.

“We are extremely pleased to partner with Pacific Blue Cross,” says Sean Slater, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Homewood Health. “Both organizations are committed to helping employers and employees live healthier lives,” Slater says, “we are very closely aligned.”

Through Homewood, Pacific Blue Cross members and their spouses, partners and dependents can access confidential, multilingual EFAP support service 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Support is available online, by telephone and in person. In addition, Homewood Health has an extensive network of 4,500 counsellors in Canada to serve their members.

In the coming weeks, Pacific Blue Cross and Homewood Health will be releasing more information about the new program to benefit partners, clients and, most importantly, members and their families.

Learn more about Homewood Health and their Employee Family Assistance Programs.

About Homewood

Homewood Health is Canada's leader in mental health and addiction services. With over 130 years of experience, we achieve outstanding outcomes every day through our national network of nearly 4,500 employees and clinical experts, and through the Homewood Health Centre — one of Canada's largest and leading facilities for medical treatment of mental health and addiction disorders. Our complete suite of services includes organizational wellness, employee and family assistance programs, assessments, outpatient and inpatient treatment, recovery management, return to work and family support services customized to meet the specialized needs of individuals and organizations. Homewood Health is redefining mental health and addiction services to help Canadians live healthier, more productive and more fulfilling lives.

About Pacific Blue Cross

Pacific Blue Cross is British Columbia’s number one health benefits provider. Based in Burnaby, BC, the not-for-profit organization provides health, dental, life, disability and travel coverage for 1 in 3 British Columbians through group benefits and individual plans. As part of its mission to improve health and wellbeing in BC, Pacific Blue Cross proactively supports charitable organizations across the province working to improve health outcomes.

Media contact:

Anne Williams
Manager, Communications & Community
Pacific Blue Cross
amwilliams@pac.bluecross.ca