HEALING from an eating disorder is hard enough. Accessing treatment shouldn’t be.
Our six Programs >>>
INSURANCE NAVIGATION
The current healthcare system in the U.S. regularly and unfairly denies coverage for eating disorder treatment at the appropriate level of care that someone struggling needs to recover.
Project HEAL’s Insurance Navigation Program Manager and resource guides help individuals understand their often confusing insurance benefits and advocate on their behalf to get their treatment covered. Investing in insurance navigation allows us to exponentially increase the number of beneficiaries that we serve each month and utilizes the benefits that someone is entitled to by law.
CLINICAL ASSESSMENT
For those unsure of the next step in their eating disorder healing journey, Project HEAL provides free, impartial, culturally-competent, and compassionate 1 hour phone assessments for anyone interested. The assessment is followed by a comprehensive 10+ page document with diagnosis, clinical recommendation, and referrals. We will also offer enrollment to one of our other programs if applicable.
TREATMENT PLACEMENT
Project HEAL offers our beneficiaries free and sliding scale treatment through our HEALers Circle. We have a large network of facilities and providers at every level of care – including inpatient, residential, partial-hospitalization, intensive outpatient treatment centers as well as eating disorder specialized therapists, dietitians, and coaches.
Through these partnerships, we are the only major nonprofit in the U.S. providing access to free treatment to individuals with eating disorders who are uninsured or underinsured.
Identity Affirming Scholarships: Project HEAL's Identity Affirming Scholarships are awarded specifically to folks with one or multiple marginalized identities to support their access to eating disorder treatment. Marginalized identities can include, but are not limited to, identities based on: Race, Gender, Sexuality, Ability, Age, and Religion.
MEAL SUPPORT
Through Project HEAL's partnership with Clinician’s Incubator, you may apply for free, weekly, virtual, meal support. Meal support sessions are live, facilitated, virtual drop-in group meals creating a safe space for those at an outpatient stage of eating disorder recovery to consume nutrition with extra support. All meal support sessions are facilitated by nutrition practitioners within the Clinician’s Incubator training program who are in process of obtaining their CNS certification. A CNS certification requires a graduate degree, extensive supervision and board approval and is an advanced nutrition credential eligible for licensure in most states.
CASH ASSISTANCE
We offer a limited number of one-time cash assistance awards of $500-$1500 to individuals who are able to demonstrate financial need seeking assistance for a tertiary cost related to their treatment. This assistance most often supports travel costs related to treatment. Project HEAL may be able to also offer cash assistance to support minimal insurance deductibles to unlock insurance benefits for a treatment stay.
Community Care
Our community care program, Body Reborn, provides a virtual, intersectional community for those who struggle with disordered eating and have faced systemic barriers due to race (e.g. those that originate for people of color). Over the course of 8 weeks, we'll engage in education and live discussion around systemic oppression, trauma, and their effects on our relationship with food/body.
GET HELP ACCESSING TREATMENT
Why Treatment Access?
Only 10-20% of people with eating disorders ever access treatment. Something isn’t working.
On top of an already broken system, the ongoing repercussions of the pandemic and cultural upheaval have created conditions that increase eating disorder risk and exacerbate barriers to care, specifically for marginalized communities. In 2021, 100% of our beneficiaries report being directly affected by COVID-19, whether by new/worsened eating disorder behaviors or by job/income/insurance loss. In addition, 44% identify as LGBTQ+, 33% are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color), and the vast majority of people who come to Project HEAL for support have another marginalized identity in the eating disorder space (65% are not underweight, 69% are older than 24, and 48% are disabled).
Each of our four (4) programs focuses on breaking down systemic, healthcare, and financial barriers to eating disorder healing. Through our Clinical Assessment, Insurance Navigation, Treatment Placement, and Cash Assistance programs, more people are able to access the care that they need and deserve.
Treatment Equity Projects
The dominant narrative is that eating disorders primarily affect young, white, affluent, thin women — but this is a myth. Research is clear that eating disorders do not discriminate: people of all ages, races, socioeconomic statuses, sizes, and genders struggle with eating disorders. Unfortunately, the playing field is not level. People outside the dominant narrative are less likely to be accurately diagnosed, to gain access to treatment, to be included in research, to receive culturally-sensitive or representative treatment, and are therefore less likely to recover from their eating disorder. These projects focus Project HEAL’s resources towards BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities.
Innovative Research with EAT Lab
It is widely understood that a myriad of barriers exist for individuals seeking eating disorder treatment, but until now, no quantitative research has been conducted. Project HEAL has partnered with EAT Lab at the University of Louisville to quantify the systemic, healthcare, and financial barriers that people in the U.S. experience when seeking eating disorder treatment. We will also contextualize those barriers as they relate to different types of lived experiences and identities. Ultimately, we will use this data to anchor our efforts to reform the eating disorder treatment landscape, and to influence future policy and legal changes within the healthcare system to ensure equitable healthcare access for all.
Donate to Treatment Access
Project HEAL is the only major nonprofit in the U.S. focused on creating equitable treatment access for all people with eating disorders, regardless of insurance or financial means. We firmly believe that eating disorder treatment is a right, not a privilege. This has been the core of our mission since our founding in 2008, and over time, we have developed the knowledge, expertise, and scalable systems to deliver this critically-important service to more and more people in need. Our ability to say “yes” to as many people as possible is entirely dependent on our resources. With up to 24 million Americans struggling with eating disorders without treatment, the need is substantial and we need your help.