Picture this…
A 20 year old young women without financial or emotional support from her family nor any health coverage or very little coverage. She has a terrible eating disorder.
Some coverage plus her own debt allows her start in-patient treatment. While she’s trying to recover she’s worrying constantly about her health insurance refusing her on a weekly basis and she’ll have to go home.
They move her through the program too quickly; before she’s ready in order to appease the insurance company.
She’s trying to cope with her lower level of care as she has graduated to the next level. She’s supposed to be proud of this but is she really? She knows it’s a farce but has no choice other than play along with the system.
A couple of weeks later they tell her her coverage is over and she must go home. She’s going back to the toxic environment that contributed to her being here in the first place. She’s also leaving with debt and her eating disorder and anxiety- depression are still active.
Yes, she’s taken new skills and experiences from the good program that she was only able to participate in for a couple of months. What she needed was a year in treatment to create any lasting change. All that hope shattered…
Was it worth it? You decide. I think not.
Keep lobbying and writing letters to your politicians demanding better health coverage for eating disorders, in and out-patient.
(c) Eating Disorders & Body Image Counseling – Read entire story here.