by EMMA PAYNE

Grief is expensive. In addition to the significant human impacts, research shows that bereavement leads to a 20%-30% increase in health care utilization.

Grief is also common. While we may not like to talk about it, 37% of Americans are grieving a recent death. The U.S. averaged 3.26 million deaths per year over the last five years and data suggests that an average of nine people grieve a single death. The CDC started measuring bereavement for the first time in 2021, but most health plans aren’t yet measuring the incidence or cost of grief.

So we decided to take a look. Here’s just some of what we found.

When a member is bereaved, health plans — especially those serving older adults — see significant jumps in utilization and costs across multiple claims categories. Examples include:

● 51% increase in Emergency Department visits and 43% increase in hospitalizations for bereaved spouses whose partners died in hospital
● 67% higher risk level for psychiatric hospitalization in the first year of bereavement for parents who have lost a child
● 74% of husbands and 67% of wives are hospitalized at least once in the nine years following the death of their spouse
● 463% higher odds of antidepressant use for people who have a prolonged grief disorder diagnosis

These increases lead to escalating claims costs that add up quickly, especially in populations 65+. But what are these costs? And what can insurers do to mitigate them?

To make these hidden costs visible, my team at Help Texts created a tool that health plans can use to model bereavement’s financial impacts. With just member numbers, the Bereavement Cost Calculator from Help Texts will estimate a health plan’s:

● Projected Per Member Per Month (PMPM) cost increase after bereavement
● Total cost impact of grief when no intervention is provided
● Estimated savings when plans provide Help Texts’ clinically sound, scalable, grief support for bereaved members

Consider a Medicare Advantage Plan with 250K members ages 65+. It should expect:

● 11,500 members to be grieving the death of a partner or child
● 81,500 members to be grieving other losses (eg. parent, sibling, friend)
● Average PMPM increase (without intervention): $110
● Total estimated year one cost impact (without intervention): $123M
● Estimated year one savings with Help Texts: $1.3M

What can a health plan do to save money and improve care and outcomes for its members? The numbers are powerful, showing that grief is expensive, but also that bereavement presents a clear opportunity to provide an impactful upstream intervention that can save millions, while also caring for people during what is often the loneliest time in their lives.

Help Texts is a clinically sound, scalable, bereavement intervention. With subscribers in 59 countries and all 50 states, Help Texts delivers affordable, multilingual grief support via text message. With extraordinary acceptability (95%) and 6-month retention (90%) rates, Help Texts’ light-weight solution makes it easy for health plans and others to improve health and community outcomes, while also realizing significant cost savings for those in their care.

Health Plans, particularly Medicare Advantage plans, can use the new bereavement cost calculator from Help Texts to estimate the true cost of bereavement and their cost savings when grief support is provided. The Bereavement Cost Calculator from Help Texts uncovers the savings potential when caring for grieving members. In less than a minute, you can start to see how much bereavement is costing, and how much could be saved by supporting members grieving the loss of a loved one.

Because the true cost of bereavement isn’t only emotional, it’s also financial. And for health plans, addressing both is the smartest investment you can make.

Emma Payne is the CEO of Help Texts