Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how people access information and support for their mental health. AI-powered tools offer meaningful potential benefits, including greater accessibility, convenience and affordability. They can also support clinicians and individuals by helping organize information, track symptoms, practice coping skills and monitor progress toward treatment goals.

However, greater access does not make AI a substitute for professional mental healthcare. Important limitations and risks, including concerns related to privacy, bias, safety and overreliance on AI-generated guidance, must be addressed to ensure these tools are used responsibly and effectively.

Read the full white paper

Want to better understand the opportunities and risks of AI in mental healthcare? Explore the full white paper, Mental Health Services in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, to learn:

• How AI is being used to support mental health assessment, treatment planning, and symptom monitoring.
• The benefits AI can offer, including increased accessibility, convenience, and affordability.
• Key risks related to bias, privacy, safety, and overreliance on AI-generated guidance.
• Why human empathy, clinical judgment, and professional oversight remain essential to effective mental healthcare.
• What consumers should look for when evaluating AI-powered mental health tools.
• The evolving regulatory and ethical landscape surrounding AI in mental health services.

Download the white paper

When military families lose a loved one, they often face more than grief alone. In addition to navigating a profound loss, many survivors are also confronted with important decisions about benefits, resources, and life after service. During these difficult times, having access to both compassionate support and trusted guidance can make a meaningful difference.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a TAPS Military Survivor Seminar and Good Grief Camp on behalf of Magellan Federal. Hosted by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS), the event brought together military survivors, peer mentors, volunteers, and organizations dedicated to supporting families following the loss of a service member or veteran.

The Power of Connection

One of the most impactful parts of the event was witnessing the connections formed among survivors. Whether through formal programming or informal conversations, attendees had opportunities to share experiences, learn from one another, and find support from people who truly understood their journey.

Programs such as the Peer Mentor Program help survivors connect with others who have experienced a similar loss, providing encouragement and understanding rooted in lived experience. For children and teens, TAPS Youth Programs and Good Grief Camps offer age-appropriate opportunities to build coping skills, connect with peers, and honor the memories of their loved ones.

The event served as a powerful reminder that while every survivor’s experience is unique, no one should have to navigate loss alone.

Supporting Survivors Together

For more than 25 years, Magellan Federal has supported military survivors through benefits guidance and personalized assistance. Through the Online Survivor Benefits Report (OSBR) and the Family Assistance Support Team (FAST), we help survivors understand available benefits, access resources, and make informed decisions during some of life’s most challenging moments.

Attending the seminar also highlighted an important reality about survivor care: emotional wellbeing and practical stability are deeply connected. While grief support helps survivors process loss and build resilience, many families are simultaneously navigating complex benefits, financial considerations, and significant life transitions. Through conversations with survivors, peer mentors, volunteers, and support organizations, it became clear that effective support must address both dimensions of the survivor experience.

For military families, understanding available benefits and resources can feel overwhelming during a period of profound grief. This is where collaboration among organizations plays a critical role. TAPS provides a trusted community built on connection, mentorship, and healing, while Magellan Federal helps survivors understand available benefits and make informed decisions through personalized guidance and support. Together, these efforts reflect a whole-person approach that recognizes survivors need not only compassion, but also clear information, trusted resources, and practical assistance as they move forward.

Our collaboration with TAPS reflects a shared commitment to ensuring military families receive the support they deserve. The experience reinforced something we have learned through decades of serving survivors: caring for families after a loss means offering both compassion and practical support. By working together, we can help survivors access critical resources, build meaningful connections, and move forward with confidence and hope.

Spotlight Magellan helps coworkers connect beyond day-to-day work through guided conversations that highlight personal interests, meaningful work and the impact people make across Magellan.

This month, we’re getting to know Jay Sledge, vice president service operations and claims solutions, who has been with Magellan for 31 years.

Continue reading to learn more about Jay:

Describe a typical workday in your life.

No two days are exactly alike, which I prefer, but my focus remains consistent: helping my teams stay aligned, make informed decisions and execute effectively. I also spend time working with people across the organization to address challenges, monitor performance, manage risk and keep strategic initiatives moving forward. My work ranges from resolving operational or regulatory requirements to supporting transformation efforts, financial planning, talent development and culture initiatives. At its core, my role is about bringing clarity to complexity and ensuring we remain focused on the priorities that matter most.

What is your favorite thing to do during your time off?

I love my monthly visits to Josey Records in Dallas, Texas. I can spend hours looking through stacks of old vinyl records. On a recent trip, I found the very first record I ever owned, KTEL’s High Energy from 1979. I took this to school every Friday to listen to during art class until my fifth-grade teacher asked that I never bring it again – LOL!

Do you have any pets? Tell us about their quirky personality traits and share a picture!

Meet Parker, our six-year-old Weimaraner. He’s dedicated years of effort to his ongoing campaign against squirrels and birds, who continue to mock him from the trees. He’s still chasing the dream, but we’re pretty sure actually catching one would ruin the whole experience for all of us.

What drew you to Magellan?

With a foundation in social work, I have always been driven by the belief that people deserve access to quality healthcare, meaningful support and community, making Magellan’s mission feel like a natural fit throughout my career.

What is your biggest strength?

My greatest strengths are bringing people together around a common goal, building trust-based relationships and translating strategy into action. I’m at my best when helping teams collaborate across boundaries, creating an environment where people feel empowered to contribute and delivering results through partnership, accountability and continuous improvement. If we can have a little fun along the way, even better.

What is the best career advice that you have?

Don’t mistake motion for momentum. Having a clear direction, alignment of people and measuring what truly matters is how change really happens.

Care coordination is about connecting people to the services and supports they need. It is also about understanding what is important to the person and making sure their goals do not get lost along the way.

At Magellan Health, one way we strengthen that work is by bringing peer support specialists onto the care team.

Across multiple states, our Recovery Support Navigation, Family Support Navigation and Youth Support Navigation programs provide adult, family and youth peer support alongside care coordination. These programs often support members and families during some of the most difficult times of their lives. A member may have experienced multiple hospitalizations or be returning home from the hospital after a suicide attempt. A family may be navigating services after their child’s hospitalization or preparing for their child to come home from a residential treatment facility. A youth may be involved with the child welfare system and living in a group home while navigating multiple services and transitions.

A care coordinator can help connect services, address barriers and support transitions from one level of care to another. A peer support specialist brings something different to the relationship: lived experience.

The Unique Role of Peer Support Specialists

Peer support specialists draw on their own experiences of recovery or supporting a loved one, along with their experience navigating systems, to help someone who may be going through something similar.

They are not another case manager or clinician. They bring a non-clinical approach that works alongside, rather than duplicates, other supports. This is the kind of collaboration we want to see across the communities we support, with clinical care, case management and peer support working together while respecting the unique contribution of each.

The peer support perspective can help members and families think through what is important to them, understand their options and raise concerns they may not have known how to express. It can also help the care team better understand what the experience looks like from the member’s or family’s point of view.

Members and families may be working with a health plan, hospital, outpatient providers, community organizations and other services at the same time. Each part of the system may make sense on its own while the overall experience can still feel confusing or disconnected.

Peer support specialists can help identify gaps, disconnects and barriers that may not be visible to others on the care team and bring that information back to the care team.

Keeping Recovery and Resiliency at the Center

When someone has experienced repeated hospitalizations, a recent crisis or years of interacting with healthcare systems, much of the conversation can understandably become focused on risk, symptoms and services.

Peer support helps keep the conversation connected to the person’s life beyond the immediate crisis.

Recovery is about more than getting someone connected to the right service. It is also about supporting people to have greater choice, hope and direction in their lives.

We have seen that in our own peer support programs. Eighty-nine percent of members and caregivers participating in our support navigation programs self-reported increases in all three areas: hope, empowerment and self-determination.^*

We have also seen reductions in hospitalizations and emergency room utilization when peer support is added to care coordination. For members with high needs, that additional focus on hope, purpose and what matters to the person can help them remain in their communities and stay connected to the supports they need.

Our internal support navigation programs are not intended to replace services in the community.

They are designed to serve as a bridge, helping members and families through a difficult period and connecting them to community-based peer support that can continue after our involvement ends.

Celebrating Peer Support Specialists

Global Peer Support Celebration Day on October 15 gives us an opportunity to recognize peer support specialists and the work they do every day.

It also falls during National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which makes October a fitting time to recognize the value people with lived experience bring to the workforce.

For some peer support specialists, including me, there was a time when working again, building a career or using personal experiences to help someone else may have been difficult to imagine.

Many have experienced mental health or substance use challenges, hospitalization, disability or other significant disruptions in their lives. Through recovery, training and experience, they are now able to draw from what they have lived through to support another person.

People who have received services become part of the workforce improving those services. People who have needed hope are able to offer it to someone else.

As we recognize Global Peer Support Celebration Day, I am grateful for the peer support specialists across Magellan and across our communities who bring their lived experience to this work every day.

They bring something to the care team that no amount of professional training can fully replace: the perspective of having lived through it.

^{*Data from Magellan 2025 PSOM (Peer Support Outcome Measure) and FSOM (Family Support Outcome Measure).} 

Behavioral health conditions are an increasingly common driver of short-term disability, resulting in longer absences, higher costs, and greater workforce disruption. Traditional disability programs often focus on administration rather than actively supporting recovery and return to work.

In Magellan’s new white paper, learn how an integrated behavioral health absence management approach can help employers support employees more effectively while reducing time away from work.

Key Insights You’ll Learn

• Why behavioral health-related disability leaves often last longer than other disability claims.
• How coordinated care management, therapy, and clinical oversight can support recovery and functional improvement.
• Strategies for creating a more intentional and sustainable return-to-work process.
• Real-world results from an employer implementation.

Demonstrated Employer Outcomes

Organizations using Magellan’s behavioral health absence management approach achieved:

• 42 average missed calendar days compared to 72 days with a previous vendor.
• 42% fewer missed calendar days.
• 99% participation rates across therapy and care management services.

Who Should Download This White Paper?

• Chief Human Resources Officers
• Benefits Leaders
• Disability and Leave Management Professionals
• Employee Wellbeing Leaders
• Health Plans
• Disability Carriers
• Risk and Workforce Health Executives

Why Magellan

With more than 50 years of behavioral health experience, Magellan helps employers, health plans, and government organizations address complex behavioral health challenges through evidence-based, integrated solutions. The approach outlined in this white paper combines clinical expertise, care management, and technology-enabled support to help individuals recover and return to work safely and successfully.

Want to discuss your absence management strategy?

Connect with a Magellan expert to learn how an integrated behavioral health absence management model can support recovery, reduce time away from work, and improve workforce outcomes. Email us at Gensales@magellanhealth.com.

Download the white paper

Depression is common, and seeking help is an important step toward better mental health for yourself, a friend or a family member. Read on to better understand depression, why it’s okay to seek support and learn about beneficial tools.

What is depression?

Depression is an illness that causes you to feel sad, lose interest in activities that you used to enjoy, withdraw from others and have little energy. It is not a character flaw or personal failing and experiencing depression does not diminish your strength, worth or value as a person.

It’s okay to ask for help

Seeking support when you need it is a healthy and normal part of life; it’s a sign of strength and self-awareness. Everyone needs support sometimes, and that’s okay.

Benefits of self-screening tools

Screenings do not diagnose mental health conditions. They are used to identify signs of potential mental health concerns early and connect individuals to care and resources. Screenings may help people feel more comfortable talking about mental health.

Trying to figure out how to get help with depression or mental health symptoms can be challenging on your own. Self-screening tools can be a good first step to help yourself, a family member, or a friend. Be sure to review your results and any recommendations with your doctor or mental health professional.

Visit Magellan’s Behavioral Health Resources website for mental health self-screening tools, educational resources and more.

While technology creates efficiency, it also introduces new pressures. Constant connectivity can lead to information overload, reduced attention span and difficulty separating work from personal time.

• Create intentional pauses: Schedule short breaks away from screens to reset focus and reduce cognitive strain. Even a few minutes can improve clarity.
• Set clear boundaries: Define when you will and won’t be online. Communicating your availability manages expectations and reduces the pressure to respond immediately.
• Limit multitasking: Switching between tools and tasks can reduce productivity and increase stress. Focus on one priority at a time when possible.
• Protect your time and energy: Form healthier work habits using apps that feature focus timers, screen time tracking and reminders to step away from your screen.

Balancing engagement with disconnection is key. Technology should support your work, not consume your attention.

For wounded, ill, and injured service members and veterans, the Warrior Games represent something powerful: a pathway to recovery, renewed purpose, and future success.  

Magellan Federal had the honor of attending and supporting the 2026 Warrior Games in San Antonio, an event that draws thousands of supporters each year to cheer on recovering service members competing in adaptive sports. Those not intimately involved in the Warrior Games may see medals and competition. What they don’t always see is the recovery journey that brought these service members to the Warrior Games. Throughout the week, we witnessed firsthand how adaptive sports, career development, and community support work together to build resilience, confidence, and hope for the future. 

The Power of Adaptive Sports 

Adaptive sports use specialized equipment, adaptive techniques, and tailored coaching to ensure recovering service members can safely engage in activities such as wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball, cycling, rowing, swimming, archery, and track and field. 

Adaptive sports provide wounded, ill, and injured service members with opportunities to rebuild strength, regain confidence, and reconnect with a sense of purpose through competition and physical activity. More than recreation, adaptive sports are a proven pathway to recovery, resilience, and long-term wellbeing. They help participants overcome physical and psychological challenges while fostering camaraderie and teamwork. 

The Impact of Coaching 

Adaptive sports coaches are essential to this process. They do far more than teach athletic techniques or improve performance. As mentors, motivators, and trusted supporters, they help service members navigate their recovery journey, set meaningful goals, and recognize their abilities rather than their limitations. 

Through their leadership, coaches create an environment that promotes growth, independence, and empowerment, enabling athletes to achieve success both in sport and in life beyond military service. 

Magellan Federal, alongside our prime partner, KSA Integration, provided 10 adaptive sports coaches during the Warrior Games through the USMC’s Warrior Athletic Reconditioning Program (WAR-P). Our coaches play a critical role in supporting recovering service members both on and off the field of competition.  

One coach, Coach Lenville P. O’Donnell, shared, “I’ve been coaching at the Warrior Games for nine years, and the success of the program is indisputable. It gives these warriors a purpose and teaches them a process for success they carry forward in everything they will do in life. The Warrior Athletic Reconditioning Program changes lives and benefits not just the service members and veterans but their family and friends.”  

His perspective highlights the lasting impact of adaptive sports programs, where recovery is not defined by limitations but by empowering individuals to recognize their strengths, capabilities, and potential. 

Preparing for Life Beyond Recovery 

The lessons learned through adaptive sports often extend well beyond competition. The same resilience, discipline, confidence, and goal-setting skills that help recovering service members succeed in athletics also help prepare them for the next phase of their recovery journey. While physical rehabilitation is an important part of recovery, long-term success also depends on education, employment, personal growth, and finding renewed purpose for the future. 

During the Warrior Games, Magellan Federal Regional Coordinators supporting the Defense Health Agency Warrior Care Recovery Coordination Program’s Education and Employment Initiative (E2I) and Operation Warfighter (OWF) programs, in partnership with our prime contractor, AMSG, had the opportunity to engage with hundreds of service members, family members, and military leaders.  

Through E2I and OWF, recovering service members receive individualized support to explore career pathways, pursue educational opportunities, gain meaningful work experience, and prepare for successful transitions into civilian life. These programs help participants build the skills, confidence, and professional networks necessary for long-term success, reinforcing that recovery is not simply about overcoming challenges, but about creating new opportunities for growth and achievement.  

By focusing on future goals and personal potential, E2I and OWF empower service members to define their next chapter with purpose, resilience, and optimism. 

A Commitment That Extends Beyond the Games 

At Magellan Federal, we are proud to support initiatives that empower those who have served our nation. The Warrior Games are a powerful reminder that resilience grows when individuals are given the tools, encouragement, and opportunities to succeed, both during recovery and beyond. 

Long after the Games conclude, the confidence, connections, and skills gained through these programs continue to support participants as they pursue new personal and professional goals. The Warrior Games demonstrate that recovery is not defined by limitations or setbacks, but by the opportunities, support, and determination that help individuals move forward with confidence and purpose.