To be mentally ill is not always (or even generally) to have a complete break with reality. Individuals such as myself (and many others) make up the majority of sufferers from mental illness. We function rather normally on a day-to-day basis. The truth is that mental illness can be extremely subtle and yet heavily damaging. As leaders we need to increase our ability to see the subtle signs of mental illness and help those we love and lead get the assistance they need from professional practitioners. This is not about taking someone who is non-functional and bringing them to a point of functioning, rather it is about taking individuals who are functioning (perhaps ourselves) and removing (or smoothing out) the roadblocks that hinder them.

Will you really meet that many mentally ill individuals? Absolutely. According to the National Institute of Mental Health over 25% of adults in the United States are suffering from a mental disorder right now. That is nearing 60 million people in the United States alone. Granted, it is around 1/4th of this number who suffer from severe mental disorders in the U.S., but this means that around 1 out of 4 individuals have at least a mild mental illness and 1 out of 16 have a serious mental illness.

In this series of blog posts my intentions is to point to some general resources on mental health that can serve as quick primers on the nature of mental disorders as well as specific resources on the most common mental disorders. I hope you will consider joining me in studying and understanding this rapidly expanding field so we can better love and lead those around us. I especially urge religious leaders to become involved in this study. As leaders we must work on our ability to differentiate spiritual and physical ailments and assist our congregants in receiving the correct assistance.

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Well, I don’t plan to blog too often about products or services I don’t like, but for the sake of humanity I think it is worthwhile to talk for a few minutes about eHealthInsurance. Choosing a health insurance provider is like pulling teeth – there are dozens of them and they all use confusing terms and have dozens of plans with prices that can outrun your income. eHealthInsurance seeks to make your life easier by compiling a number of health care providers at one spot – honing in on the plans that are best for you – and allowing you to apply right then and there online.

What did I like about the service? Well, the initial pages of the website where straightforward – enter my name, age, height and weight as well as that of my wife Charity. I also entered my zip code, then a large number of plans were made available to choose from and I could look at them by popularity, company, price, etc. Okay, all well and good.

I was a bit overwhelmed even with all this streamlining so I decided to call in. The phone menu was a little longer than necessary – but not bad comparatively (e.g. Verizon). I talked to a representative named Keith. Now I was impressed. This guy knew what he was talking about, walked me through the process, recommended the best plan for my needs, and was genuinely polite and friendly – I thought I would love eHealthInsurance.

He told me to get back on the site and fill out the online application and this is where things when downhill. While the main site has a nice design and UI, the form is a nightmare. Part of this is the insurance companies’ fault. They ask questions out the wazoo. But still, the UI design is pretty bad, so I’m going to highlight the issues here and hope eHealthInsurance stumbles upon this page and hears my concerns. They have a great nebulous idea, but until these issues are resolved I can’t recommend the service wholeheartedly:

• When asked to select a doctor they allow you to perform a lookup of physicians. This is great, except for the fact that once you find the physician there is no way to automatically import that physician’s information into your application. You have to type it in by hand!
• There form validation fields are all messed up. For example, even though we hadn’t taken medications for certain ailments the validation made us select a treatment begin and end date! And this was even so after we checked the “none” box to note we hadn’t taken any medications.
• After asking about our ailments and treatment they proceeded to have another entire form that asked just for all our prescription medication treatments – again. This information should have been imported from earlier in the document.
• Just these changes could make a huge difference in the user friendliness of the form. For a few thousand (dollars) more they could throw in a nice web 2.0 ajax enabled ui that would allow for streamlined forms that could be half the length (e.g. the page asking what ailments you have and the page allowing you to enter details about ailments/treatment could be made into one single page).

Well that is about it. I’m not saying eHealthInsurance isn’t a good company. In fact, if I had to say, “go here to get a health insurance quote.” I would probably still send people to eHealthInsurance…But not before warning those I tell about the site to be prepared for some tears and anguish before the job is completed.

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