When Caregivers Need Care: How Portico Addressed Emotional Wellbeing
Research has shown clergy experience significantly higher rates of depression than the general population, but understanding the scope of the challenge within your own workforce requires more than national statistics. When Portico Benefit Services set out to better understand emotional well-being across its population, Artemis helped them combine claims, utilization, and member-reported data to identify rising behavioral health risk and take action before burnout and costs escalated.
Read on to:
- See how behavioral health conditions emerged as a top-five cost driver
- Understand which early signals pointed to rising anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorders
- Discover how Portico designed interventions across the full continuum of need
Overview
Portico Benefit Services, the benefits ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), supports more than 46,000 members across 6,000 faith-based employers nationwide. Their population includes rostered ministers and church workers whose roles are deeply rewarding, but emotionally demanding.
Portico’s benefits team wasn’t searching for a hypothetical issue. They were responding to a well-documented and growing concern. Research published in the Journal of Primary Prevention had already shown that clergy experience significantly higher rates of depression than the general population, with 8.7% of surveyed clergy reporting depression compared to 5.5% nationally. For Portico, this research reinforced what they were hearing anecdotally from the field and prompted a deeper, data-driven examination of emotional well-being within their own population.
The Discovery
Using the Artemis Platform to analyze medical and behavioral health claims alongside qualitative member data, Portico’s benefits team validated their concern. Behavioral health conditions had moved into the top five diagnoses by cost, and year-over-year trends showed sustained growth rather than isolated spikes.
.png)
Additionally, their staff had higher-than-average EAP utilization (over 6.7%, exceeding national norms) and elevated self-reported anxiety and depression from member health assessments.
“We know there is no such thing as a 40-hour work week for most of our members; the demands of their calling make self-care difficult.”
— Josh Smith, Head of Products, Portico Benefit Services
The Domino Effect
Portico knew they had to intervene. For a population built around service to others, untreated emotional strain risked burnout, disengagement, and higher downstream medical costs.
The Action Plan
Portico’s benefit professionals searched for wellness programs designed to provide confidential, early intervention for those at-risk for behavioral health conditions and support members already receiving treatment. They identified two innovative wellness solutions:
Intervention 1: Early, Preventive Support Through Learning
Portico implemented the Being academy, a holistic video-based learning platform offering short, research-backed courses focused on emotional, spiritual, and vocational well-being. To personalize the content to their population, Portico partnered with The Big Know to customize the experience with faith-based elements, including:
- A course on gratitude and spiritual recharging
- A vocational well-being course featuring ELCA rostered ministers sharing strategies to avoid burnout
Intervention 2: Clinically Validated Mental Health Treatment
To support members requiring deeper intervention, Portico introduced Learn to Live, a self-directed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy program offering confidential treatment tracks for:
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Sleep
- Stress and worry
- Substance use
Together, these solutions were key parts of a proactive, whole-person mental health strategy, addressing both prevention and treatment, and targeting efforts across the spectrum of need, from everyday stress to chronic condition management.
The Outcome
Initial results were promising:
- Members engaged with Being for 15 minutes longer on average than comparable populations
- Strong early participation in Learn to Live across multiple treatment tracks
- Ongoing monitoring through Artemis to measure changes in utilization, engagement, and claims trends over time
Portico continues to track behavioral health outcomes using Artemis, ensuring the programs evolve based on both qualitative feedback and quantitative results.
“Leveraging Artemis Health to spot gaps and measure success helps us continually improve our Portico solution.”
— Josh Smith, Head of Products, Portico Benefit Services
The Takeaway
“Wellbeing” can be a squishy, ill-defined term. The impact of poor emotional and mental health is often overlooked, but the data makes the invisible visible. While many employees were struggling privately and feeling isolated in their experience, the data helped Portico validate that this was actually a widespread problem.
Addressing behavioral health gaps in care has become a pillar of their go-forward benefits strategy.