The following excerpt appeared in HR Dive on September 26, 2016. Click here to read the full article.

At a panel at the National Business Group on Health conference, the ‎director employee benefits at Costco Wholesale, Donna Sexton, remembered how she felt when she looked into the data on her employees’ mental wellness.

The data revealed an average of two suicides a month over an 18 month period.

Her immediate reaction: “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Suicide not only deeply, irreversibly affects families, but filters through the whole ecosystem of the workplace, pushing the emotional, social and monetary cost of a single death “way beyond” other problems that may plague a workplace.

The mental health crisis is a “real thing employers are facing,” noted Dr. Steven Serra, senior medical director at Aetna. The delivery systems remains fragmented. Even at organizations like Aetna with large networks at their disposal, many employees face six months of wait time before they can meet with a psychiatrist, Serra added. When employees do not receive treatment, it drags down the entire organization on every front of wellness.

That means employers will need to follow an old wisdom: Spend more to save more. This technique involves what Dr. Reena Pande, Chief Medical Officer of AbilTo, calls “good utilization,” and it requires solid investment — and commitment — by employers in order to create positive outcomes.