Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are services sponsored by your employer that cover short-term confidential counseling and referrals for mental health care and crisis support. EAPs are an alternative to traditional health insurance. (For more information on how EAPs typically work, you can review: Getting the most out of your EAP.)
Unlike traditional insurance, where Alma coordinates directly with client health plans to confirm benefits, EAPs give you, as a client, the opportunity to verify your eligibility for benefits directly.
You will need to gather and share these three things with your Alma provider before you can start using your EAP benefits for sessions:
- A client EAP authorization code
A unique code that you can use to apply EAP benefits to specific provider visits. - Eligible sessions
The total number of visits authorized by your employer for EAP coverage. These range from 3-10 visits, with 5 being the average. - Benefit effective dates:
The start and end dates of your EAP eligibility. This is the date you initially requested an authorization code, and the date your approved EAP benefits are set to expire. For example, you could have 5 EAP visits to use within a benefit year starting July 10, 2022 and ending June 1, 2023.
You will need to gather this information from the EAP directly before your provider can add it to the Alma portal and start care.
How can you access your EAP benefit information?
Alma is in network with Optum’s Live & Work Well EAP. If you have Optum EAP benefits, you can request an EAP authorization code, eligible sessions, and benefit effective dates in two ways:
- By calling Optum’s general EAP phone number: 866-374-6060
- By creating an account and signing in at Optum’s EAP website, www.liveandworkwell.com.
You can also find your benefit effective dates in a secure message from Optum sent to your email inbox. Be sure to check your spam and junk folders for the message if you’re unable to find it in your inbox!
Please be aware that Alma is not currently in-network with any EAPs other than Optum Live & Work Well.
To request your benefits through Optum’s website:
- Go to www.liveandworkwell com.
- Click “Register” to set up a HealthSafe ID for the website. You will need
-
- your contact information,
- employer name, and
- either your social security number or, if you have Optum health insurance, your Optum member ID number.
-
- Once you have created a HealthSafe ID, log in towww.liveandworkwell.com. Signing in will take you to Optum Live and Work Well’s main page.
- Click on the “Benefits and Services” dropdown menu at the top of the page, and select the option “Employee Assistance Program (EAP).”
- On the next page, you will see a lot of introductory information sharing what EAPs are and how to use them.
Scroll down the EAP page until you see an orange plus sign with the heading, “Access your no-cost counseling visits.”
Our sample image shows 8 visits, but your number of eligible sessions will depend on your employer. - Click “Get your code.”
- The next page gives an overview of how the authorization code works. Click the “Request a code” tab at the top of the screen to continue
- On this screen, you will beasked to review a list of situations, and to check off any that apply to you. If any of these circumstances apply, you will need to call Optum to get an authorization code, rather than using their website.
- If none of these situations are relevant to you, you can choose “None of the above” and scroll down to the next question on the same page: “What is your most pressing concern?”
- Select the option that best fits from the dropdown menu below the question, and then click “Next.”
- On the next page, you will be asked to share your name and personal information to generate the authorization code.
Note that you should only use this form to add your own information for an authorization code. If you want to create an EAP authorization code on behalf of someone else — for example, for a child or partner — you will need to call Optum directly.
- Once you submit your personal information and click “Next,” the website will generate your authorization code on screen. You will receive:
- Your unique EAP authorization code
- Number of eligible sessions
- Benefit effective end date.
If you created your authorization code through www.liveandworkwell.com, your benefit effective start date is the day that you first generated your code.
- When you leave Optum's site, you can re-access your EAP authorization code by logging back into www.liveandworkwell.com at any time. You can
- Go to the “Benefits and Services” dropdown,
- select “Employee Assistance Program (EAP)” and
- scroll down to the orange check icon to see your benefits.
- You will also receive a secure confirmation email from Optum Live and Work Well once you finish the code sign-up process. Create a password to download this secure message and save your authorization code, benefit eligible dates, and number of sessions.
- The subject heading is “Secure message from YourEmployeeAssistanceProgram@optum.com.”
- The sender is “Your EAP” (YourEmployeeAssistanceProgram@optum.com
- Make sure to share your EAP authorization code with your Alma provider to apply your benefit to Alma sessions.
We also recommend that you track how many EAP sessions you use over time, so that you and your provider can discuss next steps as you reach the end of your EAP benefit. You can read more about how to continue working with your Alma provider beyond EAP here: Continuing care beyond your EAP benefits.