Supporting a Healthy, Happy Workforce

PDS is rolling out several new offerings to support the mental and physical health of team members.

We all function better when we take care of our physical and mental health, but that’s often easier said than done. You are busy and we recognize that sometimes life can derail our plans.

Our goal at PDS is to create an environment where team members can thrive and prioritize their health including providing you and your families with specific support services you need.

We are here to offer up a few solutions that might help you wherever you may be on your physical and mental health journey. Using aggregated and anonymous claim data, we are able to identify ways that PDS can provide more tailored support for you.

The top three health care claims that our team members experience are related to:

• Pregnancy and postpartum care

• Anxiety and depression

• Gut health and related inflammatory conditions

With this information, we focused on improving existing programs and introducing some new ones based on your needs.

Introducing the Calm App

Nearly 4 in 10 adults in the United States report symptoms of anxiety and depression with adults 18-49 experiencing the highest rates. While the pandemic undoubtedly exacerbated the country’s mental health challenges, PDS knows how important it is to support a healthy mind and spirit, which is why we’re expanding our mental health offerings by partnering with Calm, the number one app for sleep, meditation and relaxation.

While Calm has a free version that anyone can download, PDS is providing team members with access to Calm’s paid subscription service. Calm has a wide range of offerings from meditations that help you fall asleep to gratitude journals, stress management sessions, expert-led workshops and more. With this benefit, PDS team members can also include up to five users so you and your family can enjoy the benefits of the app together. The Calm app is now available for team members. Please see this week’s PDSConnect email for more details.

Building Healthy Families Program

We are excited to introduce a new program with Anthem called Building Healthy Families. It is an expansion of the Future Moms and Dads program and provides personalized digital support and real-time interactive support from contraception and family planning through pregnancy, delivery, postpartum care and early childhood up to the first five years of development. This program walks alongside your current healthcare team to support your journey.

Building Healthy Families is designed around the concept that every family is unique and every maternity journey has varying goals or needs. The program helps new and experienced parents log feedings, diaper changes and developmental milestones and offer lactation support and other postpartum resources. It also includes resources for single-parent households and working parents.

Participants in the program have tremendous outcomes with over 95% success rate of healthy full term, full weight babies.

We are excited to introduce this new program in January 2024. Building Healthy Families will complement our suite of family benefits such as our back-up care through Bright Horizons, dependent care flexible spending account (FSA), employee assistance and wellness program through New York Life, our infertility benefit through Anthem which includes in vitro or IVF and our adoption assistance reimbursement policy.

Gut Health and Digestive Support

Sometimes referred to as “leaking gut,” your digestive health and its related conditions go beyond bloating and brain fog. Gut issues can have more significant symptoms such as sleep disturbances, unexplained fatigue, autoimmune diseases, thyroid conditions and serious diagnoses of ulcerative colitis, IBD and IBS, to name a few. Clearly your gut health can have a significant impact on your overall health and happiness. In fact, the gut is often called the second brain.

Knowing the physical and psychological connection, PDS is exploring innovative solutions and partners to better support team members with their digestive health. We plan to share more as we move further along on this journey. In the meantime, if you are experiencing complex or severe digestive health issues, you can contact the Anthem Health Guide Customer Service team (at the toll-free # on your Anthem ID card) and ask to be referred to an Anthem Nurse Case Manager to help you navigate your plan benefits and find a medical specialist who can assist you with proper diagnosis and treatment plans.

These new programs and offerings reflect PDS’ commitment to align benefit offerings with the needs of PDS team members. We hope you will take advantage of these additional resources as you prioritize your physical and mental health and that of your family so that you can be your best in and out of the office. Stay tuned for more updates soon.