cost of eating disorder treatment

Here’s what we know:

The vast majority of outpatient eating disorder providers are not paneled with insurance and have full practices with private pay clients, the average session costing $150. Higher Levels-of-Care are even steeper: Intensive Outpatient Treatment typically costs $1,500/week, while Residential Treatment and Inpatient Treatment can cost an average of $2,000/day. The University of California San Diego estimates that the average eating disorder treatment episode costs $80,000.

insurance often doesn’t cover eating disorder care

Although these higher levels-of-care are often technically covered by private insurance, these plans often have level-of-care exclusions, short-term authorizations, and medical necessity requirements. Government funded insurance (Medicare, Medicaid, etc) almost universally excludes anything beyond outpatient and inpatient care, rendering most of the spectrum of care inaccessible, and leaving its planholders (often low-income or disabled people) without adequate eating disorder care coverage.

full healing takes at least two years and $250,000

Most eating disorder clinicians estimate that full healing from an eating disorder takes around two years of dedicated, uninterrupted care at a variety of levels of care. If a person were to start in inpatient treatment, step down to residential care, step down to partial hospitalization treatment, step down to intensive outpatient treatment, and finish with an adequate number of outpatient sessions focused on relapse prevention, this would take around two years, and would cost around $250,000. The number of people who have these available funds or insurance who will provide coverage for this full course of treatment without unfair denials is extremely low - perhaps in the hundreds.