How Insurance Companies Deny Care for Eating Disorders

Eli Cahan, a Rosalynn Carter fellow for mental health journalism, has written a riveting takeout about insurance companies’ denying care for eating disorders for Rolling Stone. He begins by examining the case of a woman in Washington, D.C., who developed an eating disorder as a young teen.

‘When puberty hit Katernina Rinaldi in middle school, it hit hard, fast, and earlier than everyone else,” he writes. “Quickly, Rinaldi started gaining weight; her body started changing, too. As she puts it, “I had curves.”’’

Rinaldi no longer liked or felt safe in her own body, especially since its development was accompanied by unwanted male attention. She began exercising heavily and skipping meals in an attempt to stay thin. By the time she was in college, she “worked out relentlessly” and made herself vomit. Diagnosed with an eating disorder, she cycled in and out of treatment.

However, insurers often cut off treatment or denied claims for reasons like missing a phone call from a caseworker or being labeled “treatment-resistant.” One even recommended she transition into “palliative care.”

“As in “going home to die,” Rinaldi told Rolling Stone.

For his in-depth investigation, Cahan spent 18 months documenting how insurers are using loopholes in a mental health parity law to avoid paying for expensive inpatient care. He spent 18 months interviewing dozens of patients, physicians, attorneys, advocates and lawmakers, and reviewed hundreds of pages of files regarding patients’ journeys and insurance denials.

The article examines the same kinds of insurance industry practices that journalist Melanie Haiken found in “Deadly Denials,” her award-winning series published last year in MindSite News. You can read Cahan’s compelling story for Rolling Stone here.