Paying the Price

ERISA Watch with Elizabeth Hopkins

On this month’s episode our host Elizabeth Hopkins interviews Ed, a father whose daughter struggled with an eating disorder when she was a teenager over a decade ago. The family had to take out a second mortgage on their home in order to pay for life-saving treatment at a residential facility after their healthcare plan insurer refused to pay and they could obtain no help from the state agency tasked with regulating health insurance. A lot has changed since that time. But more remains to be done because every day insurance companies still refuse to pay for residential treatment prescribed by doctors for patients suffering from eating disorders and other mental illnesses and these patients are either unable to obtain the treatment they need to recover or their families are forced to go into debt to pay what should be covered by their insurance.