Throughout the year, we pay tribute to our nation’s heroes on Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, and National Military and Caregiver Appreciation Month. As a country, we do this with numerous initiatives to help those who served in our armed forces, with recent efforts concentrating on homelessness, employment, and health care.
This Military Appreciation Month, MyAdvisor wants to talk about something we have helped our Veteran community in for over 15 years – holistic health and well-being.
It’s a commonly known statistic that 17 veterans commit suicide on a daily basis, a number that was recently recalculated by the Department of Veterans Affairs. That is one and a half times more than the rate of civilians. In fact, between 2008 and 2017, 60,000 veterans died by suicide.
The sad reality is those numbers continue to increase year after year and there are still roadblocks preventing veterans from getting the help they need.
The challenges are many, but they are not insurmountable. At MyAdvisor, we believe that technology provides support with options — specifically, telemental health, which is when therapists or other counselors provide support through online channels or over the telephone.
The results of this type of treatment are striking:
We’ve seen improved patient outcomes with our own telemental health program, MyAdvisor. Over the past 15 years of working with the VA, the program has used sophisticated technology to connect veterans from near and far with our team of nearly trained and licensed care coordinators. With more than 40,000 calls on a monthly basis, the demand for this kind of support is clear.
Telemental health’s ease of use and ability to bring support to veterans who live, in some cases, hundreds of miles from their nearest VA hospital is invaluable. As part of our mission, MyAdvisor is using technology as a tool to improve the availability of mental health needs and provide service to those who provide service to others.
This Military Appreciation Month— and every day — we want our heroes and their families to know there is more than one route to mental health treatment. They served our country. Now, it’s time we all serve them.