Eating Disorders

Sadly, eating disorders are a silent epidemic in our nation. Despite the unprecedented growth of eating disorders in the past 20 years, research continues to be under-funded, insurance coverage for treatment is inadequate, and cultural pressures to be thin remain pervasive. Additionally, eating disorders seem to either carry more stigma + shame than other types of mental illness – or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, be dismissed as “all in the client’s head”, despite the fact that anorexia has the highest fatality rate of any mental illness. 

“In the United States, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, or EDNOS (Wade, Keski-Rahkonen, & Hudson, 2011). (EDNOS is now recognized as OSFED, other specified feeding or eating disorder, per the DSM-5.)”

This means that practices treating eating disorders have both unique needs and challenges. Since many are inpatient or IOP (intensive outpatient) facilities, they need a Practice Management Program that provides the features necessary to those specialties. Also, eating disorders typically require treatment by an MD, NP or DO to address physical needs, complementary to behavioral health treatment. Because of this medical component, eating disorder agencies often need EHR functionality such as Lab Integration, Decision Support, and ePrescribing – and that they qualify for compliance programs such as Meaningful Use / MACRA.
This resource center includes blogs that pertain to eating disorder clinicians in these categories:

EHR / EMR functionality + features unique to this field of mental / behavioral health (such telehealth, which has been shown to be effective for treating eating disorders)
Compliance resources, such as guides to deciphering Meaningful Use or DSM-5 code updates
General information about eating disorders to assist providers in delivering quality care

The PIMSY Team acknowledges that eating disorders are a silent epidemic in the US and would like to support clinicians in effectively treating it, whether or not they’re users of our program.
Resources Include
https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/information/statistics-studies
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-facts-eating-disorders