‘Sick Enough’ for Care: The Truth About Getting Eating Disorder Treatment in America
glamour.comat age 18. Her family insurance covered a two-month stint at a residential eating disorder treatment center in St. Louis, Missouri, however, four weeks into treatment, her coverage was under review.
Though she still required a feeding tube, felt suicidal, refused meals, and cried at meals, she had gained enough weight to classify as , and showed some stabilized lab values.
On paper, according to her insurance company, she was “better.” “The minute you find out that you're on the chopping block with insurance in the midst of an anorexic meltdown, I feel like treatment kind of stops there,” Boland, now 21, told Glamour in February. “I was immediately just terrified and went into crisis management mode.”Boland was discharged from residential treatment even though her therapist, dietician, and psychiatrist didn’t think she was ready.
With no step-down options (a.k.a. less intensive ) because of the COVID-19 pandemic and lack of insurance coverage, she was on her own. “So, I go home, and I start purging…And then once those floodgates are open, I start binging, which is something I couldn’t have ever imagined myself doing,” she remembers.“Insurance had kind of proven to me, no, I’m not that sick,” she says. “Everyone’s telling me I’m sick and I need to put in this massive effort to recover, but I’m just not sick enough.” At least 30 million Americans have an eating disorder, but only get the treatment they need.
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