Five Million Dollars is not a Victory. It is an Indictment.

The EDCoalition and some advocates are celebrating the June 12, 2026, announcement of the House Appropriations Committee’s advancement of $5 million for eating disorder prevention, screening, training, early detection, and related work. They posted, “We did it EDCoalition!”

In the narrow world of appropriations politics, some may call that a win. They believe that any federal recognition of eating disorders is better than silence. Others more appropriately call it, “dereliction of duty.”

But that is just one of the many problems. The baseline has been set so low that symbolic movement can be mistaken for serious action.

Five million dollars is not a serious federal commitment to eating disorder research. It is not close. Measured against the federal budget, comparable psychiatric and substance use conditions, the mortality rate of eating disorders, and twenty-five years of organized federal advocacy, the number is not a breakthrough. It is damning evidence of gross incompetence.

For 2026, the Congressional Budget Office projects total federal outlays at approximately $7.4 trillion. Against that number, $5 million for eating disorders represents about 0.0000676% of federal spending.

For greater perspective, for every $1 million the federal government spends, this eating disorder package represents roughly 68 cents.

That is not a national research priority. It is a rounding error with a press release.

A household comparison makes the number harder to hide. If an eating disorder professional earns $75,000 per year, the same percentage of her income donated toward eating disorder research would be … five cents.

One nickel.

That is the scale of “the victory” being celebrated.

Nor is the $5 million, in any meaningful scientific sense, $5 million for eating disorder research. Four million dollars is directed to the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders. The committee language describes provider engagement, pediatrician consultation, screening and treatment guidance, pediatric training models, prevention, early intervention, treatment protocols, education, training, and awareness. Those functions may be useful. They may improve identification. But they are not longitudinal mortality studies. They are not randomized clinical trials. They are not biological, genetic, neuropsychiatric, pharmacologic, or comparative treatment research at the scale the illness demands.

The remaining $1 million is labeled “Eating Disorders Research” under the HHS Office on Women’s Health. That line is narrow by design. Eating disorders affect women and girls, but they also affect men, boys, athletes, veterans, older adults, and people across race, income, and geography. A serious national research agenda would not be confined to one office, one demographic frame, or one million dollars.

If research means actual NIH scale investigation into causes, mortality, treatment outcomes, relapse, biological mechanisms, clinical standards, access, comparative efficacy, and prevention, then this package does not appear to do that.

Zero dollars in this package are appropriated to the NIH eating disorder research portfolio.

Zero dollars are described as new NIH grants for disease mechanism, clinical trials, longitudinal outcomes, mortality reduction, pharmacologic innovation, or treatment accountability.

Zero Dollars.

That is the headline.

The number becomes worse when placed against eating disorder mortality. ANAD reports that 10,200 deaths each year are the direct result of an eating disorder, roughly one death every 52 minutes. If the entire $5 million package is credited as eating disorder funding, it equals about $490 for each eating disorder death.

That is not valuation. It is scale. It is an insult to those who have died from eating disorders.

If only the $1 million line labeled “Eating Disorders Research” is counted, the figure falls to about $98 per death. If only new NIH research money specifically created by this package is counted, the figure is zero.

That is the damning arithmetic behind the celebration. But there is more.

Eating disorders are not obscure. They affect an estimated 28.8 million Americans over a lifetime. They carry serious medical risk. They intersect with anxiety, depression, trauma, substance use, suicide, cardiac complications, endocrine disruption, gastrointestinal injury, bone loss, infertility, malnutrition, and organ failure. They are not lifestyle problems. They are not boutique illnesses. They are not adolescent vanity disorders. They are lethal psychiatric and medical diseases.

Yet the federal response remains as if eating disorders did not exist at all.

Research disparity among other mental health issues is shocking. NIH estimated eating disorder research support at roughly $55 million in fiscal year 2024. Anxiety disorders received about $266 million. Depression received about $673 million. Schizophrenia received about $239 million. Drug abuse, through NIDA alone, received about $1.663 billion. Substance misuse received about $2.588 billion.

Those conditions deserve serious funding. The comparison does not prove they are overfunded. It proves something else: when the federal government treats a psychiatric or behavioral health condition as a research priority, it knows how to fund at scale.

Eating disorders are not treated that way.

The same point appears in federal spending outside health research. The federal government has been willing to identify, authorize, defend, or fund foreign and international programs in amounts that exceed or dwarf the entire eating disorder package. Publicly cited examples include:

$6 million for cultural tourism and local economic development in Egypt.

$20 million for Ahlan Simsim Iraq, a USAID funded Sesame Workshop affiliated program aimed at children in Iraq.

$24.6 million to build climate resilience in Honduras.

$13.4 million for civic engagement in Zimbabwe.

And nearly $11 million for armored personnel carriers for Uruguay’s quick reaction force. It staggers the imagination to know our federal government is spending more than twice as much on armored personnel carriers for Uruguay’s quick reaction force instead of eating disorder research.

On questionable domestic programs, the federal government has been willing to provide funding in amounts that equal the entire eating disorder package. Publicly cited examples include:

$5 million appropriated for potato breeding facilities in Idaho.

$5 million for historical publications and records grants.

$5 million for Native tourism activities.

$5 million for a harmful algal bloom demonstration program.

$5 million for algal carbon utilization to support data centers.

$5 million for a golden mussel watercraft inspection program in California.

$5 million for moving a local airport passenger terminal in Texas.

$5 million for a veterinary teaching clinic in Kentucky.

Those projects have their lobbyists, their local sponsors, and their bureaucratic justifications. Compared with the federal neglect of eating disorders, they are worthless priorities. They do not carry the mortality burden. They do not explain 10,200 deaths a year. They do not represent a national psychiatric and medical crisis. They do not leave families burying children after years of failed treatment, denied care, and inadequate science.

The comparison is not unfair. It is the point. Five million dollars is a routine federal line item for potatoes, mussels, algae, airports, tourism, records, and veterinary facilities. For eating disorders, it is being sold as a national victory. It is actually a national disgrace.

Washington can move tens of millions of dollars when a priority is visible. It can defend large sums when a program has institutional force behind it. It can spend at scale when the issue is treated as urgent. Eating disorders, despite the mortality burden, remain funded as if the deaths are regrettable but politically inexpensive.

Which brings the focus back to the Eating Disorders Coalition.

The EDCoalition has existed since 2000. After more than a quarter century of organized federal advocacy, the question is not why Congress did so little. The question is why the leading federal eating disorder advocacy organization is celebrating so little and accomplishing even less. Who is funding the EDCoalition for this gross incompetence? For that matter, let’s explore that gross incompetence.

Let us start with the size of the ask. A movement serious about research would not treat a few million dollars as a historic achievement. It would be demanding a major NIH eating disorder initiative, a national mortality study, longitudinal outcomes data, comparative treatment research, relapse studies, treatment safety research, and real accountability for levels of care. It would insist that eating disorders be funded in proportion to their lethality, prevalence, and medical complexity.

Instead, we are left to wonder who is funding the EDCoalition and diverting attention away from those important issues? Who is funding this betrayal of public trust and setting the agenda? Answers to which will never be supplied. Transparency is optional.

Instead, we watch with incredulity EDCoalition celebrating a meaningless $5 million appropriation, most of it directed toward screening, training, education, consultation, early detection, and technical assistance.

Those are support functions. They are not a research agenda.

In some ways, no appropriation at all would have been more honest. Zero dollars would have plainly exposed the neglect. It could have become a legitimate rallying point. Families, clinicians, researchers, and patients could have pointed to the absence and said: this is what abandonment looks like. Why does this exist?

Five million dollars does something more dangerous. It creates the appearance of progress while preserving the reality of neglect. It gives Congress a talking point. It gives advocacy organizations a fundraising headline. It lets the field announce movement without forcing the community to confront how little was actually done.

That is why the celebration is not harmless.

A token appropriation can anesthetize outrage. It allows policymakers to praise families, clinicians, researchers, and people with lived experience while allocating sums that would not sustain a serious national research agenda for one lethal disease. It allows the public to hear that eating disorders received funding without understanding that the funding is microscopic. It allows an advocacy organization founded twenty-five years ago to announce a win instead of admitting that the federal response remains grossly inadequate.

The failure is not that nothing happened.

The failure is that so little happened, and the public was asked to applaud.

If eating disorders are serious, life-threatening illnesses, fund them that way. If early detection saves lives, fund the research that proves what works. If evidence-based treatment matters, fund comparative outcomes, relapse data, mortality studies, program accountability, and treatment safety. If one person dies every 52 minutes, stop pretending $490 per death is a victory.

Five million dollars is not progress at scale. It is not a research commitment. It is not a national response. It is a measure of how little the crisis still matters in federal policy. And apparently, with the lack of public outrage, with the failure to demand answers and accountability, the eating disorder community simply does not care either.

That is the indictment.

A patient refuses breakfast. A parent tries to supervise lunch between work calls. By dinner, food has been hidden, exercise has been concealed, and the number on the home scale depends on whether anyone was watching closely enough. The care team appears by video. The eating disorder remains in the house.

That is the promise and the risk of virtual eating disorder care. Recovery can happen at home only when the home can safely become part of the treatment system.

Equip Health did not enter the eating disorder field quietly. It loudly arrived with a prosecution of the existing system. In Equip’s telling, residential treatment was expensive, disruptive, inaccessible, opaque, and insufficiently evidence based. Families were being asked to send children away. Patients were cycling in and out of facilities. According to Equip’s public rhetoric, families were spending large sums of money on care that did not reliably produce recovery.

That critique landed because much of it contained truth. But shadows and shades of truth also exist in the critique.

First, there is no generally accepted standards of care for eating disorders. A basic, crucial priority. The medical and mental health fields have known about eating disorders for literally decades. And yet, the eating disorder field cannot collaborate and come up with generally accepted standards of care. That, in and of itself, is a felony-like indictment against the system and everyone in it.

Eating disorder treatment in the United States is fragmented, expensive, unevenly regulated, and often inaccessible. Many families cannot find trained clinicians. Many insurers deny care until a patient is medically worse. Some residential programs have overpromised, underdelivered, or sold safety without providing it.

But Equip’s argument deserves the same scrutiny Equip applies to residential treatment. Once a company attacks an entire level of care while selling its own substitute, the question is no longer whether the old system has flaws. The question is whether the replacement has proven what it claims.

On that question, the public record is much thinner than Equip’s marketing.

Equip’s model is simple to describe and difficult to validate. It sells virtual, home based eating disorder treatment built around family-based treatment, a multidisciplinary team, peer and family mentors, medical oversight, therapy, nutrition support, and payer reimbursement. It presents this model as evidence-based care delivered without uprooting a patient’s life. It also presents itself as an alternative to the traditional pathway that moves patients among inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient care.

And all delivered through the convenience of your laptop screen.

The problem is not that virtual care cannot help some patients. It plainly can. Family based treatment has strong support for adolescents with restrictive eating disorders. Telehealth can expand access. Many families live nowhere near a qualified eating disorder clinician. A home-based model can preserve school, work, family contact, and ordinary life.

The problem is the leap from that defensible proposition to the broader commercial narrative: that a venture backed, payer aligned, virtual platform can stand as a scalable answer to treatment settings that provide supervision, containment, meal observation, and immediate intervention for medically and psychiatrically fragile patients.

Equip has been willing to put residential treatment on trial. Its own record should now be tried.

The Anti-Residential Pitch

Equip’s leadership has publicly criticized residential treatment with unusual directness. Kristina Saffran, Equip’s cofounder and chief executive, wrote that residential settings had become the go to treatment for adults and adolescents despite “no data” on effectiveness. She described watching people cycle in and out of those centers. Equip’s public materials contrast its virtual approach with sending a child away to a residential facility.

Those are not mild statements. They are market positioning. They tell families, clinicians, and payers that residential treatment is not merely costly or unpleasant, but suspect.

That positioning matters because Equip is not an academic critique. It is a company selling the alternative.

When a non-profit advocate says the residential industry needs reform, that is one thing. When a venture backed provider says residential care lacks evidence while asking insurers to pay for its own model, the statement has commercial force. It helps redirect demand. It helps shape payer behavior. It helps define what families are told counts as serious care.

Equip is entitled to criticize residential treatment. But criticism is not proof. A company cannot use the weakness of one sector as evidence that its own model has solved the problem.

The Evidence Gap

Equip’s strongest public evidence appears to be internal or affiliated research, payer reported outcomes, and observational data from patients treated inside its own system. That is not meaningless. It is also not the same as independent proof.

The public record does not show an independent randomized trial proving that Equip’s proprietary five-person virtual model is equivalent to residential treatment, partial hospitalization, or intensive outpatient care for high acuity eating disorder patients. It does not show long term independent relapse data sufficient to support sweeping claims about durable recovery. It does not show that virtual care can safely replace higher levels of care for patients who need supervision, structure, meal support, bathroom monitoring, medical stabilization, or emergency psychiatric containment.

Equip’s studies may show improvement among selected patients. But selection is the issue. Who was admitted? Who was excluded? Who dropped out? Who was hospitalized? Who stepped up to a higher level of care? Who deteriorated? Who was lost to follow up? Who had caregiver support strong enough to make the model work? Who did not?

A treatment model built around home supervision depends on the home. That is not a minor variable. It is the model.

Equip can say its approach is adapted from evidence-based, family-based treatment. However, that does not establish that every expansion of the model, every diagnosis treated, every acuity level accepted, every payer pathway created, and every substitution for facility-based care is equally proven. The public studies do not appear to answer the hardest question: not whether some patients improve with Equip, but whether patients who would otherwise need a higher level of care are safe and adequately treated when routed into a virtual platform.

That distinction is the center of the case against Equip’s public narrative.

The Home Becomes the Facility

Equip’s model does not merely treat patients at home. It turns the home into the treatment site.

That shift is profound. In residential care, staff are tasked to monitor meals, watch for purging, interrupt compensatory behavior, respond to refusal, observe medical deterioration, and provide containment. In Equip’s model, that burden moves into the household. Parents and caregivers become meal supervisors. Families become behavior monitors. Home scales become clinical instruments. Kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, grocery stores, and exercise routines become part of the treatment environment.

That can work in the right family. It can also fail for reasons that have nothing to do with motivation. Some parents work jobs that do not allow meal supervision. Some households are divided by divorce, conflict, poverty, addiction, violence, illness, or exhaustion. Some patients are adults whose families have no legal or practical control. Some caregivers are too frightened, too traumatized, too clinically naive, or too financially strained to perform the job the model assigns to them.

Recovery at home is a clinical model only when the home can safely become a clinic.

That is the part of the promise families need to hear clearly. Virtual treatment is not simply a more humane version of higher care. It is a transfer of clinical labor into the household. If Equip excludes patients whose homes cannot support that transfer, its model is narrower than its public rhetoric. If it accepts them anyway, the safety questions become more serious.

The Business Model Behind the Clinical Claim

Equip’s financial structure sharpens the concern. Public releases and reports identify F Prime Capital, Optum Ventures, .406 Ventures, The Chernin Group, Tiger Global, General Catalyst, Katie Couric Media, and Alex Morgan among Equip’s publicly named investors, with Kerry Washington later announced as an advisor and investor. Equip’s public and regulatory record also shows substantial later equity financing: a 2024 Form D amendment reported approximately $35 million sold to five investors, and a September 2025 Form D amendment reported approximately $54.1 million sold to twelve investors. Those later Form D filings do not publicly identify the investors.

That capital does not come without expectations. Venture backed health care companies are not built to remain small, cautious, and slow. They are built to scale. Scaling a virtual eating disorder provider means adding lives, adding states, adding payer contracts, expanding diagnoses, increasing referrals, standardizing protocols, and demonstrating that care can be delivered at lower cost than facility-based treatment.

Again, none of that is inherently improper. But it creates pressure. And in health care, pressure travels.

It travels into admission criteria. It travels into marketing claims and payer conversations. It travels into outcome metrics. It travels into decisions about which patients can be treated virtually and how long a company waits before recommending a higher level of care.

The Optum Ventures investment is especially important. Optum Ventures led Equip’s Series A offering. Optum is part of the UnitedHealth Group ecosystem, one of the most powerful payer and health services structures in American medicine. Equip also publicly identifies UnitedHealthcare and Optum among insurance plans connected to coverage. A payer connected investor in a virtual model that can reduce use of residential or partial hospitalization care is not proof of misconduct. It is, however, a bright red discovery target.

The question is direct: Was Equip marketed to payers as a clinically superior model, a lower cost substitute, or both?

Aetna’s public discussion of its value-based arrangement with Equip adds weight to that question. Aetna described the collaboration as a way to standardize outcomes, reduce disruption, and control costs. It reported patient progress and symptom reductions among Aetna members treated by Equip. It also framed the arrangement as a value-based success.

That may be good payer management. It may also be the precise place where clinical judgment and cost containment begin to blur.

The broader question is not limited to Optum or Aetna. Who benefits when higher levels of care are avoided? Payers benefit from fewer residential, PHP, and IOP claims. Virtual providers benefit from payer referrals. Investors benefit from scalable treatment with lower facility costs. Families may benefit when virtual care is clinically appropriate. But patients may be harmed when a lower cost model substitutes for needed containment.

If a patient is routed to Equip because virtual care is clinically appropriate, that is one thing. But, if a patient is routed to Equip because residential or partial hospitalization is expensive, difficult to authorize, or disfavored by the payer, that is another. The public record does not answer that question. It demands that the question be asked.

What Virtual Care Cannot Do

Equip’s model rests on an appealing premise: recovery should happen in real life. But eating disorders often thrive in real life. They hide in bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, grocery stores, exercise routines, laptops, family conflict, secrecy, shame, manipulation, and medical instability. The disorder is not merely a thought pattern that can be discussed over video. It is behavior, physiology, risk, concealment, and control.

Virtual care cannot sit at the table for every meal. It cannot watch a patient after dinner. It cannot prevent purging in the bathroom. It cannot stop compulsive exercise in the bedroom at midnight. It cannot verify every weight. It cannot take vital signs unless someone reliable takes them. It cannot create a safe household where one does not exist. It cannot supply twenty-four-hour containment when a patient is suicidal, medically unstable, actively restricting, purging, fainting, manipulating weight, or refusing food.

Medical instability is not a branding problem. It can mean bradycardia, orthostatic instability, electrolyte disturbance, dehydration, syncope, refeeding risk, laxative abuse, acute self-harm, or suicidality. Those risks do not become manageable because treatment is convenient. They require accurate detection, rapid escalation, and honest limits.

Equip can respond that those patients require hospital stabilization or a different level of care. That answer is clinically necessary. It also narrows the model. It means Equip’s public promise depends on careful exclusion, rapid escalation, and honest recognition of what virtual care cannot safely manage.

That is where the public rhetoric becomes dangerous. The broader the attack on residential care, the easier it becomes for families and payers to hear that higher care is outdated, excessive, or unnecessary. The broader the claim that recovery can happen at home, the easier it becomes to underestimate the patients for whom home is not a treatment setting. It is the site of the illness.

The Missing Denominator

Equip and its payer partners have reported favorable outcomes. But every outcome claim in behavioral health lives or dies by its denominator.

How many patients entered treatment? How many completed it? How many left early? How many required hospitalizations? How many stepped up to residential, PHP, or IOP? How many had emergency interventions? How many relapsed six months later? How many were excluded before admission because they were too medically unstable, too psychiatrically acute, too unsupported at home, or too difficult to monitor? How many families could not perform the work the model requires?

Without that denominator, success rates risk becoming marketing assets rather than scientific findings.

This is especially important because Equip has criticized residential treatment for cycling patients through care. If Equip wants to make relapse, readmission, and revolving door treatment part of the indictment against residential providers, then Equip must disclose comparable data for its own model. Not just symptom improvement among engaged patients. Not just progress among payer members. Not just weight restoration among those who remained in care. The complete denominator.

The public record does not yet supply that level of independent validation.

What Would Prove Equip Right

Equip could answer much of this criticism with evidence. Not slogans. Not affiliated outcome summaries. Not payer success stories. Evidence.

Independent randomized or well-matched comparative studies would matter. Full denominator reporting would matter. As would comparable acuity groups. Long term relapse and readmission data are material. Adverse event reporting and transparent hospitalization and step up rates matter. Independent replication by researchers without financial ties to Equip are imperative. Payer savings data separated from clinical outcomes. Clear criteria for patients who met residential level of care but were treated virtually must be disclosed.

That is what proof looks like.

Until then, Equip has not disproven residential treatment. It has built a business arguing that many patients should not need it.

The Real Indictment

Equip’s vulnerability is not that virtual care never works. That would be false and unserious. The vulnerability is that Equip has built a business around a claim that needs far more independent proof than the public record appears to provide.

Equip has criticized private equity owned residential treatment while raising venture capital. It has presented home based virtual care as evidence based and scalable. It has partnered with insurers in arrangements that explicitly include cost control. It has accepted investment from a payer connected venture fund. It has published or promoted favorable outcomes while the hardest questions about exclusion, dropout, escalation, relapse, adverse events, and long-term recovery remain unresolved in the public domain… and undisclosed.

The issue is not whether Equip is another false hope story to desperate families. The story is that Equip is a test case for a larger transformation in American behavioral health: the conversion of complex, high risk care into virtual, scalable, payer friendly products.

That transformation may improve access for some patients. It may also produce a cheaper treatment pathway that looks most successful when the sickest, least supported, hardest to monitor patients are filtered out, stepped up, or missing from the denominator.

The eating disorder field has already seen what happens when treatment is sold faster than it is proven. Families are desperate. Insurers are cost conscious. Investors want growth. Clinicians are scarce. Patients are vulnerable. In that environment, the company that claims to have solved access, cost, evidence, and continuity deserves heightened scrutiny precisely because the promise is so attractive.

Equip put private equity owned residential treatment on trial. Now, Equip should produce the evidence for its own case.

Publish the full denominator. Publish step up rates. Publish hospitalization rates. Publish adverse events. Publish dropout data. Publish relapse data. Publish payer savings data. Publish the criteria used when patients met residential level of care but were treated virtually. Publish the conflicts.

Then the field can judge whether Equip has built a breakthrough. Or merely a scalable workaround for expensive care.

The March 2026 jury verdict in Los Angeles against Meta and Google, paired with the preceding $375 million New Mexico verdict, marks a structural shift in how courts conceptualize harm arising from social media platforms. These cases do not merely expand liability; they reframe the legal ontology of digital platforms from neutral intermediaries into potentially defective consumer products.

For eating disorders, conditions already deeply entangled with algorithmic amplification, body image distortion, and compulsive engagement, this shift is especially consequential. The emerging litigation theory may provide, for the first time, a coherent legal pathway to attribute causation and duty in eating disorder related harm.

In the past, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) provided a strong defense for social media platforms. This section states in relevant part:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

This is often described as broad immunity, but more precisely it is a liability shield against publisher-based claims, not a general immunity from all wrongdoing.

The way in which this defense operates is that a court applies a three-part test. A defendant (e.g., Meta, Google) is protected under §230 if:

It is a provider of an interactive computer service
The claim treats it as a publisher or speaker
The content at issue was provided by a third-party content provider

If all three are satisfied a claim is barred.

Section 230 was designed to encourage online platforms to host user content, avoid crushing liability for user-generated speech and promote moderation without penalizing platforms. In short, platforms are not liable for what users say.

Prior eating disorder related litigation typically failed because courts viewed the harm as derivative of third-party content. For example; users post “thinspiration” or extreme dieting content, Plaintiff is harmed by exposure, and; platform’s sole role was hosting or distributing that content. The conclusion? § 230 applied and the case was dismissed.

The recent Meta/Google verdicts succeed because plaintiffs changed the theory of liability. The old framing (fails under §230): “You allowed harmful content to exist.” Case dismissed.

The new framing (survives §230): “You designed a system that predictably causes harm.” This is the doctrinal pivot.

§ 230 did not protect Meta and Google in the recent cases because the plaintiffs targeted conduct not content. In these cases, plaintiffs argued the harm arose from addictive design features and algorithmic amplification mechanisms. The plaintiffs did not argue that damage arose from a specific post. Thus, the platform is being sued for its own conduct, not third-party speech.

Algorithmic Amplification as Independent Conduct

This is one of the most important legal developments. Historically, courts often treated recommendations as publishing. Now, plaintiffs argue that algorithms are behavioral engineering systems because they; analyze user psychology, optimize for engagement and escalate exposure to harmful material.

This reframes algorithms as active conduct, not passive publication.

Section 230 was never designed to address defective products. In the Los Angeles case, the theory was the platform itself is the product and its design was unreasonably dangerous. This avoids §230 dismissal because the claim does not depend on who created the content. Instead, it focused on how the system functions.

Defendants often argue “but for content” trap, i.e. without third party content, there is no harm so §230 applies and the case should be dismissed.

Plaintiffs successfully avoided this by arguing that the harm arose from compulsive engagement loops and reinforcement cycles. The content is merely input and NOT the legal basis of liability.

This distinction is subtle but decisive.

Also, the plaintiffs were able to bring forth evidence that the platforms knew about harm (e.g., to teens, body image, ED risk) but continued optimizing engagement anyway. This evidence supports claims of negligence, recklessness and malice. This strengthens the argument that the wrongdoing lies in corporate decision making, not user content.

Why This Matters Specifically for Eating Disorders

ED Harm Fits the “Design, Not Content” Model. Eating disorders are not typically triggered by a single post. But by repeated exposure, escalating comparison and behavioral reinforcement. These are clearly algorithmic phenomena.

Unlike traditional media, social media platforms can identify users engaging with dieting content and body comparison content. This increases the likelihood of exposure. This frames a plaintiff’s argument as harm is not incidental, it is systematically intensified. There is also substantial evidence that social comparison leads to body dissatisfaction and repeated exposure leads to disordered eating behaviors

This makes it easier to argue that harm was predictable, foreseeable and safer alternatives were available.

The War is not over

It is important to note that Section 230 is not “dead.” It is being narrowed at the margins. Meta and Google still have strong appellate arguments. They will plausibly argue that algorithms are protected editorial judgment. As such, Section 230 should apply.

They may argue algorithmic curation is protected speech and liability chills expression. They undoubtedly will attempt to re-characterize all harm as ultimately stemming from user content. If successful, §230 could be reinstated on appeal.

Section 230 failed in these cases not because courts rejected it outright, but because Plaintiffs successfully changed the question. Instead of asking, “Are platforms responsible for user content?” They asked, “Are platforms responsible for designing systems that cause harm?”

That shift moves the case outside §230’s core protection, aligns with product liability and negligence frameworks and is particularly powerful in contexts like eating disorders.

If this theory holds on appeal, it will open the door to large scale ED litigation. It could force platforms to redesign engagement systems and implement youth protections.

Increased Eating Disorder Liability

For ED-related claims, liability may no longer depend on identifying specific harmful posts. Instead, plaintiffs can target recommendation algorithms, engagement loops (likes, scroll, autoplay) and behavioral reinforcement systems. This aligns directly with how ED pathology operates: repetition, reinforcement, and escalation, not isolated exposure.

Historically, ED-related litigation struggled with causation; eating disorders are multifactorial (genetics, trauma, culture) and Courts viewed platform influence as too attenuated.

The recent verdicts suggest juries are now willing to accept alternatives. The Los Angeles case framed harm through addiction mechanics; compulsive use, reinforcement loops and diminished control. This maps closely onto ED pathology; compulsive restriction, bingeing, or purging, reinforcement through comparison and validation and escalating behavioral cycles.

Unlike traditional media, social media platforms learn user vulnerabilities and optimize content delivery accordingly. For ED claims, this enables arguments that platforms did not merely expose users to harmful content. They systematically increased exposure based on detected susceptibility.

This is a qualitatively different form of causation, not passive distribution, but active behavioral shaping.

Among potential harm categories, EDs are uniquely positioned for litigation success due to a high predictability of harm. There is extensive internal and external research linking social comparison → body dissatisfaction → disordered eating. We now know that social media platforms can track repeated viewing of weight loss content, thinspiration and calorie restriction narratives. This creates a potential evidentiary record of foreseeable harm combined with continued amplification.

Courts are especially receptive to harms affecting minors and failure to implement protective measures. ED onset often occurs during adolescence, aligning directly with peak social media usage and peak psychological vulnerability.

Long-Term Structural Changes

As a result of these cases, we may see an emergence of “Digital Duty of Care” particularly for minors. Social media platforms may be held to standards similar to product safety law and pharmaceutical risk disclosure. Courts may formalize liability tied to predictive amplification of harm. And we may see potential legislation impacting youth specific design standards, limits on engagement optimization and/or mandatory transparency for algorithmic systems.

We may also see evolving clinical implications for eating disorders. Eating disorders may increasingly be viewed not only as psychiatric conditions but environmentally induced or exacerbated disorders linked to platform design.

Clinicians should begin to document social media exposure patterns and incorporate platform use into diagnostic frameworks. This could strengthen litigation evidence and insurance coverage arguments.

In addition, eating disorders may be reframed as partially technology-mediated disorders. This parallels lung cancer (tobacco) and opioid addiction (pharmaceutical design and distribution).

The Meta and Google verdicts do not merely increase litigation risk, they signal a paradigm shift in how harm from digital systems is understood and adjudicated. For eating disorders, the implications are profound:

A viable legal theory now exists
Causation barriers are weakening
Platform design is becoming justiciable
Large-scale settlement frameworks are increasingly likely

Most importantly, these developments may redefine eating disorders not only as clinical phenomena, but as foreseeable outcomes of engineered environments optimized for engagement at the expense of psychological safety.

If this trajectory holds, the next phase of litigation will not ask whether platforms contributed to eating disorders, but to what extent, and at what cost.

Gratitude for ?

In years past — usually every November — Sierra Tucson and its Overlord and Master, Acadia Healthcare, would descend upon the Dallas–Fort Worth area to host their annual “Gratitude for Giving” Event.

This event purported to honor individuals and organizations making a positive impact in the mental health community. A noble endeavor, at least in theory — recognizing the resilient, compassionate mental health professionals who do thankless work while corporate giants circle overhead, feeding off their labor.

So without further ado, let’s get to this year’s honorees. They are …

Uh … well … uh…

Make no mistake: North Texas is overflowing with mental health heroes who deserve recognition — especially the ones humble enough to insist they are not worthy of it.

And yet, Acadia chose to honor …

That is undoubtedly due in large part to the fact that Acadia is not hosting a Gratitude for Giving Event in North Texas this year.

Why? Oh, the reasons are plentiful. Embarrassingly plentiful.

Possible Reasons

It could be … that Acadia’s once-respectable stock price — around $82 per share in September 2024 — is now living, if one can call it that, on life support at a pathetic $15.00. That’s not a dip; that’s a financial face-plant. Ouch.

It could be the ongoing Department of Justice fraud investigation that refuses to die … much like the problems Acadia keeps pretending don’t exist. Nothing says “gratitude” like having federal agents rummaging through your corporate laundry.

It could be in November 2025, Acadia shelled out a cool $179 million to settle one of the many fraud lawsuits brought by its own shareholders. When your investors sue you, you know you’ve achieved a special level of corporate rot.

It could be the numerous other pending lawsuits against Acadia owned entities for allegedly physically and sexually abusing people entrusted to its care(?).

It could be the abrupt closure of multiple Acadia facilities over the past year — not because they suddenly discovered ethics, but because the abuse was too egregious or the profits weren’t fat enough. Facilities like Options Hospital, Carolina House, Timberline Knolls, Montecatini.

It could be the number of victims under the “watchful” eye of Acadia who died at their facilities.

It could be the fact that the Department of Veteran’s Affairs is investigating Acadia for allegedly engaging in Medicaid fraud.

It could be that shareholders have filed other fraud lawsuits against Acadia alleging that Acadia engages in medically unnecessary involuntary hospitalization of psychiatric patients. Because nothing says “healthcare” like trapping people to bill insurance.

It could be that Acadia’s methadone clinics are under investigation for falsifying medical records to meet productivity quotas — and billing insurers and Medicaid for therapy sessions that never happened. Productivity over people, as always.

It could be that in June 2024, the US Senate issued a scathing report regarding Acadia and 3 other entities alleging in part that vulnerable children are being used as pawns to maximize the profits of these facilities – and American taxpayers are footing the bill. The report further states, “More often than not, these kids aren’t even getting the basic care they need and instead are in many cases experiencing serious neglect and abuse.”

This is not a wave of bad publicity. It is a tsunami of scandal, abuse, fraud, and moral bankruptcy. And so Acadia — desperate for even a flicker of positive PR — chooses to honor…

Shouldn’t we wonder why? Is it because its head isn’t screwed on just right? Could it be perhaps, that its shoes are too tight? But, perhaps the most likely reason of all … is that its heart is two sizes too small!

But let’s drop the Seussian metaphors for a moment. We all know the real reason.

When an entity places profits over patient care, the inevitable results are mistreatment, abuse and tragedy. At its quarterly shareholders’ meetings, the number of beds are discussed, quarterly revenue, adjusted EBIDTA, capital expenditures, market trends, and issues pertaining to its revenue. What is not discussed is the lack of QUALITY care given, the harm to families it is causing, the abuse, or how the lack of oversight of its facilities is being addressed.

Life and death issues being cavalierly dismissed. After all, we can’t let a few deaths and some abuse detract from Acadia’s CEO’s annual salary of $7 million! That daily paycheck of $19,178.00 needs to keep rolling in!

With this long history of abuse, assault, fraud, unethical profiteering, lack of transparency, shuttering facilities and gross mismanagement, who should be referred to any Acadia facility?

Sadly, that will not stop eating disorder organizations from continuing to accept Acadia’s dirty money and marketers continuing to refer families to Acadia’s chambers of abuse … More’s the pity.

HOW TO FIGHT DENIAL OF YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE CLAIM

An insurance company denying your legitimate, desperately needed health insurance claim has become all too common, an ordinary way of life … and a large profit center for those insurance companies.

Finally one attorney, Brian Hufford, has dedicated his practice to addressing this widespread problem. But first, let’s look at the alarming statistics.

In 2023, insurers on the HealthCare.gov marketplace denied an average of 19% of in-network claims and 37% of out-of-network claims. Denial rates varied widely by insurer, ranging from as low as 1% to over 50%.

Surprisingly, the most common reason for denial isn’t related to medical necessity at all. A full 34% of denials fall under the nebulous category of “Other”—an unspecified catch-all that gives insurers maximum flexibility and patients minimum clarity. When these vague denials are appealed, they’re overturned approximately 55% of the time, suggesting that the majority have no solid justification.

Administrative issues account for another 18% of denials. These include coding errors, missing information, or duplicate claims—technical issues having nothing to do with whether the care was appropriate or covered under the policy. These denials have the highest overturn rate at 78%, as they’re often simple misunderstandings or clerical errors that can be easily corrected.

Claims categorized as “service not covered” make up 16% of denials. While these have a lower overturn rate of about 35%, successful appeals often demonstrate that the service actually does fall under covered benefits when policy language is properly interpreted or when the medical necessity is clearly established.

Prior authorization issues cause 9% of denials, with patients receiving care without getting the insurer’s permission first. These have a 65% overturn rate when appealed, particularly when the care was urgently needed or when the provider can demonstrate they attempted to secure authorization.

Perhaps most concerning are the “not medically necessary” denials, which represent 6% of cases. These denials essentially second-guess your doctor’s judgment about what care you need. Yet when patients and their doctors challenge these determinations, they succeed approximately 70% of the time—an alarming discrepancy that raises questions about how these decisions are made in the first place.

Despite these high denial rates, fewer than 1% of denied claims are ever appealed by consumers. A survey found that 85% of patients never file a formal appeal, often due to a lack of awareness of their appeal rights or the complexity of the process.

When consumers and providers do appeal, they have a strong chance of success. According to a recent KFF survey, patients who took the time to appeal their denials experienced a 44% success rate with initial internal appeals—meaning nearly half of all challenges succeeded in the first round. For those whose internal appeals were rejected and who proceeded to external review, an additional 27% succeeded at that level.

When healthcare providers manage the appeal process, over 54% of initially denied claims are ultimately paid after multiple rounds of review. Some sources suggest that up to 80% of appeals can be successful when pursued effectively.

In summary, despite the fact that while claim denials are common, and patients and providers who navigate the appeals process often succeed in getting the denial reversed, the vast majority of denials go unchallenged.

The 2023 KFF Survey of Consumer Experiences with Health Insurance found that 58% of insured adults said they have experienced a problem using their health insurance, including denied claims. Four in ten (39%) of those who reported having trouble paying medical bills said that denied claims contributed to their problem.

Each denial costs medical practices, on average approximately $43 to process, creating over $19 billion in administrative waste annually across the healthcare system. Small practices often spend more than 12 hours weekly wrestling with insurance companies over denied claims.

By making the process difficult and opaque, they ensure most people simply give up and pay out-of-pocket, or worse, forgo necessary medical care altogether. The financial result is billions in unpaid claims that boost insurance company profits while shifting costs to patients.

And at least one man, one attorney has had enough. Brian Hufford was one of the lead attorneys in the Wit v. UBH case still pending in California.

Briefly, David Wit along with other insureds brought a class action lawsuit challenging United Behavioral Health’s (UBH) use of flawed, financially motivated internal guidelines to deny coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment, rather than applying generally accepted standards of care. The district court initially found during a class action trial that UBH violated the terms of its health insurance policies and breached its fiduciary duties under ERISA, ruling that UBH’s internal guidelines were defective and more restrictive than generally accepted standards of care. The Court of Appeals reversed this decision on the benefit claim and dismissed those class claims but sent it back to the district court to determine if the fiduciary duty findings should remain. Upon reconsideration, the district court again found that UBH breached its fiduciary duties. The case is on-going.

Despite that case still being active, Brian left his firm to start his own practice. After spending a career founding and running health insurance dispute practices at private firms, representing patients and clinicians against insurance companies, Brian opened his own practice as of July 1, 2025, to focus on public policy and advocacy.

His primary work is to expand help for people appealing health insurance denial. As the statistics show, this is a service that is wholly lacking in our current system. To address this matter, Brian is working with law schools to provide pro bono opportunities to law students who assist with health insurance appeals, working under his supervision. He is coordinating this effort through the People’s Action nonprofit, which is pursuing a Care Over Cost campaign, and Brian is serving as legal advisor to its National Appeals Team. Brian is also working as Senior Legal Advisor to Claimable, Inc., a start-up that is using AI to systematize health insurance appeals (www.getclaimable.com/).

If you have people who have been subjected to denials and need help with appeals, feel free to contact Brian (which is pro bono through his law school project). Depending on the number of patients who reach out, he may also connect people to Claimable for assistance.

Brian’s website is below, which has a link to a form patients can fill out. The form is automatically forwarded to Brian, and he will then follow up. You can contact Brian with any questions you may have.

This crucial resource for our families is so incredibly important. And could very well mean the difference between you getting the necessary care you or your loved one need versus suffering from an unjust system.

Embrace a better future.

For more information, go to:

About Us

UPDATE iaedp

As many know, iaedp is facing an existential crisis brought about by its own lack of transparency, past irresponsible management decisions, litigation, and administrative complaints filed with the IRS, Department of Labor and the California Franchise Tax Board.

It has been almost a year since I last wrote on iaedp. This article is meant to give an update on various issues. As before, these updates will be coming from a person who is in an adversarial relationship with iaedp.

On behalf of aggrieved eating disorder certified professionals and a potential class, I filed the lawsuit in federal court in Dallas, Texas. Iaedp, Dena Cabrera, Dr. Joel Jahraus and Dr. Ralph Carson were named as defendants. They are represented by a law firm based in Chicago. Ms. Harken is represented by a different law firm. All attorneys are from reputable firms and have strong reputations.

The case was moved to the Central District of Illinois, a district in which Ms. Harken resides. Despite the passage of time, the case is in its infancy and none of the substantive merits have been decided. iaedp, its named board members and Ms. Harken have all filed motions to dismiss the case. In essence, the defendants are saying that the plaintiffs have not properly plead the case, do not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit and did not allege sufficient facts supporting their claims. These types of motions to dismiss are standard practice in most cases filed in federal court.

Naturally, the Plaintiffs disagree with the Defendants’ position, are requesting that the motions be denied and the case be allowed to proceed. The Court has not yet ruled on those motions.

In the unlikely event the motions are granted and the case is dismissed, an appeal will be filed in the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, Illinois. When the motions are denied, the case will proceed to the next stage. This involves engaging in extensive discovery, depositions and document production.

Regardless, the lawsuit will not be decided any time soon as settlement is unlikely. In the past almost two years, including before filing suit, the plaintiffs made at least three (3) settlement offers with the hope of expeditiously resolving this matter.

iaedp chose to not make any substantive response.

Before filing suit, we sent a letter with information and evidence showing improprieties and concerns about iaedp. We requested that we sit down and talk as professionals. We even suggested bringing in a neutral mediator to assist. No monetary demands. No demands that any iaedp officer be fired. iaedp and Ms. Harken decided to “lawyer up” and refused to talk. This necessitated filing the lawsuit. Had Ms. Harken and iaedp agreed to meet, perhaps the lawsuit would not have been necessary. And iaedp would not be on the edge of collapse.

In the past few months, we again made a settlement offer to Drs. Carson, Jarhaus and Ms. Cabrera. We requested that with their attorneys present, they sit down and have a professional, frank discussion about any knowledge or information they had of iaedp. In exchange, they would be dismissed from the lawsuit. No monetary demands. No public statements demanded. Just a request to talk. Again, our efforts were rejected.

As such, the parties are now set in their positions. No further settlement discussions are anticipated. No settlement is anticipated. When all efforts to salvage what is left of iaedp have been refused, what is there to discuss? Every attempt we made to resolve all issues so that past sins could be addressed leading to a more hopeful future were rejected.

There are times in a lawsuit, if one side is pushing settlement discussions, the other side looks upon that as a sign of weakness. The opposing attorney thinks, “They recognize the holes in their own case! We can exploit this.” At times, that is accurate.

However, there is another reality. At times one side may wish to pursue settlement for a much greater purpose. By addressing past sins, and then moving forward, the needs of a community are often best served. It is a sign of being willing to work for the common good. Far from a weakness, it demonstrates strength. It is not a sign of an unwillingness to go to war. Instead, it is a willingness to exhaust all possible avenues of resolution before going to war. Because that may be in the best interest of a community. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

An expeditious, confidential settlement was in iaedp and Ms. Harken’s best interest. Especially when you consider the following facts, all of which have been confirmed as being accurate:

For a significant period of time, iaedp was not in good standing in the State of California, the state in which it was organized;
When a California organization is listed as not being in good standing, it does not have the authority to conduct business (including perhaps, overseeing and issuing board certifications);
For most of its existence, iaedp was not registered as a foreign (California) organization in the State of Illinois, its principal place of business;
When a foreign (California) organization is not properly registered in the State of Illinois, it does not have the authority to conduct business (including perhaps, overseeing and issuing board certifications);
The Illinois Secretary of State lists a number of iaedp chapters as being dissolved or not in good standing;
As a result of the lawsuit being filed, iaedp removed the requirements of symposium attendance and association membership in order to acquire or maintain board certification. This happened only after the lawsuit was filed and was one of the key issues in the case;
Some person, presumably Mr. Harken, forged the signatures of Dr. Jahraus and Ms. Cabrera on corporate documents submitted to the Illinois Secretary of State;
Presumably in order to attempt to avoid paying taxes not just to the State of California but the IRS, Ms. Harken classified herself, or at times, her non-existent corporation as an independent contractor;
The California Franchise Tax Board assessed and is collecting significant back taxes, penalties and interest from iaedp;
Even though there is a legion of documents, including Ms. Harken’s prior sworn declaration that Ms. Harken was an independent contractor, last month Ms. Harken filed a motion with the Court stating that she was an employee of iaedp. The significance of misleading the Court on this issue was to attempt to avoid liability under the racketeering laws;
As a result of Ms. Harken’s false statement about being an “employee,” Plaintiffs filed a motion for sanctions asking the Court to assess sanctions against Ms. Harken.

There are many other facts supporting Plaintiffs’ right to recovery in the lawsuit. However, perhaps the most significant issue may be that since iaedp was not in good standing in either California or Illinois for significant periods of time, did iaedp have the legal authority to oversee and issue board certifications during those times? That is, if you were issued your board certification when iaedp was not in good standing, is your certification valid? Is your certification basically a worthless piece of paper? And if not, what are the ramifications? Those will be questions for the Court to decide.

In litigation as in war, you achieve victory by engaging in a relentless, well-orchestrated and carefully designed plan to obtain victory and deprive your opponent of the initiative. You make your opponent pay a price higher than it expected for choosing the path of war. In litigation, an attorney has the power of the legal system. Issuing subpoenas for relevant documents not just from the named parties but also from third parties and witnesses. Deposing people who may have information of relevant facts. Uncovering lies. Exposing arrogance, greed and collusion. Discovering facts which support long held suppositions. Hundreds of hours spent on the process. The uncertainty. The unexpected.

If iaedp prevails in the lawsuit, it will attempt to continue its existence the best it can. Or if and when the plaintiffs prevail, and a judgment especially on a class wide basis is entered, many certified professionals will be eligible to receive some type of monetary compensation. However, iaedp may not have the financial resources or enough insurance in place to satisfy a large judgment. This will inevitably result in iaedp failing or declaring bankruptcy and the certification program either being adopted by another organization or falling altogether.

In any event, the eating disorder community is at a crossroads. We can only hope that the community finally comes together and proceeds in a direction that is designed to bring collaboration, wisdom and insight. We can only hope.

LIVE OR DIES … Ai DECIDES

Your 18-year-old daughter, who is struggling with severe anorexia, desperately needs a higher level of care. Biologically, her organs are failing. You make a claim with your health insurance company. And you receive a denial.

You quickly research and then discover an Ai program utilized by the insurance company made the decision to deny saving your daughter’s life.

Welcome to the world in which we live. Where Ai programs may be making life and death decisions about your loved ones. That is the very harsh reality. So, let’s explore that reality.

First, what is “artificial intelligence?” The term itself is so vague as to be mystifying. What makes it artificial? The fact that human beings invented it? That it is silicone based instead of carbon based? Is the programmed intelligence, which is designed to learn at a rate far faster than humans can possibly comprehend, deemed artificial because it lacks a sentient existence?

Is Ai artificial because whereas it may “learn,” it does not experience the subtle nuances and life experiences which make us all unique? Does Ai have a soul? For that matter, do we?

Regardless, with Ai still being in an early stage of development, and with Ai’s developing interaction with humans, we must find ways to build guard rails so that Ai is not in a position where it could singularly make life and death decisions. Decisions which are often made by health insurance companies when deciding to pay, or not pay, for life saving surgeries or treatment. Or is it already too late?

Imagine if you will, an Ai program being utilized, without human interaction, to review and decide a claim or an appeal of a claim for a higher level of care, or to receive necessary treatment or to receive a life-saving procedure. An Ai program with no human experiences, no ethics, no soul, no subtlety, no morality. To leave our very existence in the hands of a machine, a machine that cannot love, cannot experience sorry, or joy, or happiness, or despair. And yet … that is happening. Today.

In 2020, UnitedHealth Group division Optum acquired naviHealth and its algorithm for predicting care, called nH Predict, which UnitedHealth uses and contracts out to other insurers, including Humana. Multiple industry sources estimate that Optum paid at least $1.1 billion dollars and when considering debt and related financial structuring—the purchase price is estimated to be as high as $2.5 billion. When asked by the Guardian, a spokesperson for UnitedHealth Group denied that the algorithm is used to make coverage decisions. [Like when UBH denied it ran its guidelines through its accounting and finance departments?]

UnitedHealth, Humana and Cigna are facing class action lawsuits alleging the insurers unethically relied upon Ai generated algorithms to deny lifesaving care.

One of the lawsuits alleges that Cigna denied more than 300,000 claims in a two-month period. This equates to spending approximately 1.2 seconds for each presumably physician-reviewed claim. Such a practice is aided by algorithms, the lawsuit alleged.

The Cigna lawsuit also alleged that nH Predict had a 90% error rate, meaning nine out of 10 denials were reversed upon appeal – but that vanishingly few patients (about 0.2%) appeal their denied claims, leading them to pay bills out of pocket or forgo necessary treatment.

Appealing denied claims means big business. The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimate that when insureds appeal initial denials administrative costs for insurance providers exceed $7.2 billion annually.

According to a United States Senate Report issued in October 2024, UnitedHealthcare, CVS and Humana – the three largest providers of Medicare Advantage, together provide almost 60% of all Medicare Advantage coverage – but reject prior authorization claims at higher rates using technology and automation. That report can be found here:

Click to access 2024.10.17-PSI-Majority-Staff-Report-on-Medicare-Advantage.pdf

To support the implementation of Ai, health insurance companies argue that Ai programs streamline claims processing, more effectively flag fraud, and promise greater speed, efficiency and cost savings. They claim that by automating routine claims, Ai frees up human reviewers to focus on complex or borderline cases that require medical judgment and nuance. (For that matter, don’t all claims require medical judgment?)

Despite its alleged advantages in claims processing, Ai has faced fierce criticism, especially when its role extends to denying coverage or appeals for essential care. Ai is not immune to flaws, as its decisions depend on data quality and programming — both of which can perpetuate mistakes or systemic biases. Garbage in Garbage out.

Many Ai systems operate opaquely, leaving patients, providers, and even insurers unsure how specific decisions are made. This undermines trust and impedes meaningful appeals.

Numerous lawsuits allege that Ai tools prioritize cost-saving over medical necessity. In some cases, Ai has overridden physician recommendations, resulting in denials of rehabilitation, mental health services, or life-saving treatments.

There is a widespread perception—and often a harsh reality—that health insurers prioritize profits above the needs of their insureds. Ai tools, by automating denials or aggressively limiting coverage, can exacerbate this distrust, especially when decisions feel impersonal or unjust.

Critics argue that Ai systems are often deployed as “rubber stamps,” with little or no meaningful physician review—contravening legal and ethical obligations.

Meanwhile, states like California have moved to ban Ai-only coverage denials, signaling a wave of regulatory intervention.

As for those health insurance companies which utilize Ai alone to decide claims or appeals, the major issues focus on:

Risk of Profit-Driven Bias: Ai tools influenced by financial priorities may embed cost-saving incentives that override medical necessity, echoing problems revealed in the Wit v. UBH case.

Lack of Clinical Nuance: Ai lacks the ability to fully understand complex medical contexts or patient histories that human clinicians evaluate.

Transparency and Accountability: Patients have a right to clear explanations and meaningful appeals, which Ai-alone systems often fail to provide.

But that is where we are. Ai is being utilized by insurance companies to decide claims and appeals. Although the insurance companies may deny this fact, it is a reality. Especially since widespread use of Ai in denying claims and appeals will result in much greater profits for these companies.

To counter this reality, the future must be shaped by the following:

Stronger Regulatory Frameworks

States and potentially federal regulators are developing rules to ensure Ai complements—not replaces—human medical judgment. Requirements for physician involvement, transparency, and appeal rights are expected to expand.

Increased Legal Scrutiny

As lawsuits proceed, courts will clarify the legal boundaries of Ai’s role in coverage decisions, particularly under ERISA, Medicare Advantage rules, and consumer protection laws.

Pressure for Transparency and Explainability

Insurers may face mounting demands to disclose how Ai tools function, how decisions are made, and how patients can challenge automated denials.

Smarter, More Ethical Ai Development

Future Ai systems may incorporate safeguards to avoid wrongful denials, improve alignment with medical standards, and enhance explainability.

Ai’s exploding involvement, or interference in our lives will only increase. That is inevitable.

There is the potential that Ai can make health insurance claims processing faster, fairer, and more efficient—but only if deployed responsibly. It must address not only human fallibility but also the systemic distrust stemming from the reality that insurers prioritize profits over patients. Lessons from Wit v. UBH remind us that financial influence over clinical decisions can have devastating consequences, a cautionary tale for Ai implementation.

As courts, lawmakers, and the public demand accountability, the health insurance industry faces a pivotal choice: embrace Ai as a tool to support—not supplant—human expertise, or risk eroding trust and facing costly legal consequences.

The future of Ai in health insurance is not just a technological issue—it is a legal, ethical, and societal issue. Right now, the live of your loved one may very well depend on a machine. On Ai. A lifeless, soulless computer program devoid of all emotion, mercy and humanity.

That is our reality right now. Allow yourself to contemplate that reality and perhaps yes, be afraid. For our future depends on wisdom far greater than humanity has ever demonstrated. Our health depends on it. Our very lives depend on it.

Research Grants, DEI and the Future

On February 7, 2025, in accordance with the Trump Administration’s mandate to eliminate waste in federal spending, the National Institute of Health (“NIH”) announced it was capping “indirect costs” on federal research grants at 15%. In addition, a number of research projects, both current and future were terminated.

Indirect costs are used to cover research expenses such as equipment and facilities maintenance, IT services, and administrative support. Indirect costs are itemized separately from direct research costs and are often expressed as a percentage. For example, an indirect cost rate of 50% means that for every dollar awarded as part of a research grant for eligible direct costs, the institution would receive an additional 50 cents to cover indirect costs.

But indirect costs are also used to fund another very important aspect of research.

Every university-based study has to go through a rigorous ethics process. All animal studies go through IACUC (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee). All human studies through an IRB (Institutional Review Board.)

Not only are studies submitted for a full ethics board review at the beginning of the study, but they must be renewed every year and any deviation from protocol, adverse event or other unforeseen result must be resubmitted and reviewed by the board. These committees include faculty members who receive a minimal salary for their time and include lay members from the community (who are also remunerated).

The review involves a substantial amount of work and basically ensures that animals used in research are being treated humanely and that people are (being treated like animals?). No, that people are treated ethically. The documentation and regulatory aspects are so complex that many universities now have a Regulatory and Compliance Officer to assist in the tracking of all aspects of these research grants.

Without the IRB and IACUC there can be no research. If the university administration decides to “break” the current indirect system, the ethics structures would also break, and this would be another way in which research would screech to a halt.

So, the question must be asked, how did we get here?

In 2023 the NIH invested $35 billion in research through 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at 2,500 universities/research institutions. Of the $35 billion, $26 billion was for the ‘direct cost’ of the research and $9 billion (26%) was for indirect costs.

In its February 7, 2025, announcement, the NIH said its 15% cap on indirect cost could save $4 billion annually. On the surface, this cap may seem reasonable.

So, why is the 15% cap causing such turmoil in academia?

First, it came from the Trump Administration. Since many people in academia look upon President Trump as evil, or the anti-Christ, or a Fascist or Hitler incarnate, they look upon anything he does as bad for the Republic.

Undoubtedly part of the angst was also caused by the heavy-handed manner in which the announcement was made, and the cuts implemented. Giving universities only one weekend to absorb the news, conduct meetings and conferences, and undertake a search to locate and receive other sources of funding is patently unreasonable. Budgets had been set, scholarships and employment for university professionals had been scheduled in part based on the indirect grant costs. To presume that universities could undertake all actions necessary to continue research projects in the span of 48 hours is unrealistic.

But there are two sides to a coin and two edges to every sword.

So, why did this happen?

Some pundits speculate that DEI is the underlying culprit. And the heavy-handed manner in which DEI has been foisted upon the American public.

DEI is an incredibly nuanced, complex, multi-faceted topic. At its core, it attempts to address the manner in which we, as a just and fair society can and must stride forward into a bold future. A future filled with hope for all. When properly implemented, DEI provides greater opportunities for those who have been traditionally overlooked.

Microsoft created a neurodiversity hiring program targeting individuals with autism and other neurological differences.

Johnson & Johnson invested in a supplier diversity program to support owned by minorities, veterans and people with disabilities.

When implemented by diverse, intelligent persons from both ends of the political spectrum, DEI can be intelligently utilized to provide greater opportunities. That requires collaboration by people of differing opinions and backgrounds.

That is one of the ways where Academia fails.

Academia pushes an identity-based approach to DEI encouraging people to define themselves by race, gender and victimhood rather than by merit and responsibility. This mindset focuses on resentment instead of ambition.

Regarding DEI and equality, Academia and liberals tend to focus on equality of outcome (does everyone have the same things?).

Corporations and conservatives tend to focus on equality of opportunity (is everyone treated the same?).

The undeniable reality is that on its surface and as utilized by Academia, DEI is fundamentally discriminatory. DEI asserts that representation must be based on an end product or result evidencing broad based inclusion regardless of merit. This attempts to address the horrific scourge of past discrimination by engaging in horrific acts of future discrimination.

Under the Biden Administration, DEI and research grants flourished.

However, a society which distorts history is not advancing. It is regressing. One of the great failures of multiculturalism is its rejection of assimilation. The process by which different cultures blend into a shared identity rather than remaining separate factions. We must focus on merit and opportunity. Not grievance.

So, what must be done now?

The old system of applying for and pursuing grants is over. Quite frankly, it should be. The eating disorder research community has suffered far too long at the hands of a radical element which places their social justice and political views over families. Those people who have ignored and derided the medical community in order to showcase their own dysfunctions and inner turmoil.

Tragically, it is now the university research professionals who are paying the price for this ignorance as their research funding has been reduced or eliminated.

In the short term, there is not much the university-based research professionals can do. Except pray that the various pending lawsuits result in favorable outcomes.

Certainly, GoFundMe accounts are not the answer. Unless hundreds of thousands of dollars are contributed through GoFundMe accounts, those GoFundMe efforts approach questionable ethical boundaries. A few thousand dollars will do nothing to replace the lost funding. They are symbolic at best.

But the long term?

First universities and researchers must have a greater understanding of the possible return of investment for grants. Universities must become more like the private sector. They must have vision as to how research is applicable to the understanding and treatment of illnesses in the real world. Not social justice issues. Not radical political issues.

As such, universities must mandate that the focus of research be applied to medically based, science supported issues. A commonly cited factor for NIH allocation decisions is scientific opportunity. Universities and institutes are typically looking for the best and most innovative research.

However, an important question is whether research on the same diseases remains on the forefront of discovery for many years. It is difficult to accept, given the constancy of funding across diseases, that the relative likelihood of scientific breakthroughs varies in the same way across diseases now as it did 10 or even 20 years earlier.

Disease-specific advocacy also plays an important role in NIH funding. Although advocates’ success in garnering congressional support for research can lead to higher overall NIH budgets, most advocacy groups focus on specific diseases. Some of the extra funding that certain diseases obtain could be the result of these efforts.

This means that medical and scientific aspects of an illness must be emphasized and placed at the forefront of a study. Research which involves social justice issues or denying science not only will not get funded, but they cause harm to the community.

Private foundations and large corporations want to know exactly how your research study will improve the lives of their employees or the people their foundation supports.

University professionals must determine the manner in which emerging technologies and synthetically created intelligence platforms will become involved in the subject about which their research addresses. Ai is not just here to stay, but it is growing and learning at an alarming rate. If a researcher does not have a firm grasp on emerging creations and technologies and how that impacts his/her study … they are wasting their time.

Universities can partner with research and development liaison organizations. Those organizations can find suitable collaborative outside entities who will invest money to cover in part, those indirect costs. A failure to do will result in overall failure.

For that matter, there are a number of private equity companies and a few publicly traded companies which own hundreds of mental health treatment centers across the United States. These entities have literally billions of dollars of assets and resources at their disposal. Imagine the epic advances and increased knowledge of eating disorders, including state of the art treatment protocols which could be discovered and implemented through … collaboration. This type of collaborative effort would not only lead to breakthroughs in treatment resulting in a legion of lives being saved, but as another benefit, would result in increased profits for those companies.

There are solutions. Ready solutions. However, finding the right solution can be difficult and confusing.

In order to discover a brave new world, we must embrace strength, resolve, intelligence, collaboration and faith. Without those qualities, we will remain lost. And knowledge and advancement will be stifled.

THE VICTIMS … THEIR FACES

I was recently advised that articles about IAEDP and Acadia were getting redundant.

So, why continue ?

Regarding Acadia, the answer is quite simple. Because its systemic corruption continues seemingly unabated and its vapid denials and inane posturing have reached an absurd level.

But before going into the most recent damning New York Times investigative article on Acadia, let’s look into the eyes of some of their victims:

Christopher Gardner

Five year old Christopher was left for 8 hours in a transport van at a West Memphis, Arkansas daycare facility owned by Acadia. Workers tried to cover up their gross negligence by signing documents showing that Christopher was taken inside the West Memphis day care center, even though he remained on the van. At least one media outlet reported the temperature in that van rose as high as 141 degrees. Christopher died in that van.

Deborah Cobbs

In May 2024, 20-year-old Deborah Cobbs, died after she threw herself down a staircase. At Timberline Knolls. Police reports indicate that she attempted to run away from the campus twice that very day. Which makes it quite curious as to why she was not being closely supervised.

Tiley McQuern

In January 2023, Tiley McQuern, 50, was found dead in her bed at Timberline Knolls after swallowing too many pills.

Those are just three of the many Acadia victims. Look at their faces. Never forget their faces. Because the faces in those photos are all that is left for their loved ones.

On April 22, 2025, the New York Times published an article about Acadia’s now shuttered and infamous facility, Timberline Knolls. It is entitled, “Suicides and Rape at a Prized Mental Health Center. Timberline Knolls, a mental health center owned by Acadia Healthcare, skimped on staff. Then came a series of tragedies.”

Although behind the New York Times paywall, the good people at the Salt Lake Tribune published the article in its entirety here:

https://www.sltrib.com/news/nation-world/2025/04/22/timberline-knolls-owned-by-acadia/

Some of the statements in the article include:

“But dangerous conditions persisted for years at Timberline Knolls, an investigation by The New York Times found, in part because of pressure to enroll more patients without hiring enough employees.”

“Two former residents sued Timberline Knolls last year, claiming that an aide had raped them. Acadia had hired the aide despite a criminal record that included domestic violence and gun charges.” [emphasis added]

“Another resident — a child who was a ward of the state — nearly died after she overdosed on medication that had been left out in a common area, according to former staff members. And two other women died by suicide after being left unsupervised, a rare occurrence at mental health facilities.”

“We were extremely understaffed,” said Cecilia Del Angel, who worked as a behavioral health aide at Timberline Knolls until last July. Several other former employees echoed that sentiment. The patient deaths, Ms. Del Angel said, were “entirely preventable.”

“Illinois regulators had not looked into the suicides. A spokesman for the state’s health department said it did not regulate Timberline Knolls, and the state’s Division of Substance Use Prevention and Recovery had not visited the property since 2019.”

“The problems at Timberline Knolls were part of a nationwide pattern of lapses at Acadia, one of the country’s largest for-profit providers of mental health services, with more than 260 facilities in 39 states, The Times found.”

“Acadia has closed facilities over the past decade after reports of sexual abuse. More than a dozen patients reported sexual assaults at an Acadia psychiatric facility in Utah. At a youth treatment center in New Mexico, patients claimed that staff had sex with them and pushed them to participate in “fight clubs.” And in Michigan, three women said they had been sexually abused by a supervisor at a youth treatment center.”

“In the summer of 2018, patients complained to Timberline Knolls employees that a therapist, Michael Jacksa, had sexually abused them on Timberline’s campus. The facility waited more than three weeks to call the police, doing so only after the patients complained to the state’s substance abuse agency, court records show.”

“Timberline’s leader at the time, Sari Abromovich, said an Acadia executive had told her not to alert the authorities, according to a deposition she gave in a lawsuit later filed by one of the women who was raped.”

“Ms. Abromovich, who was fired in 2018, said she was under daily pressure from corporate managers to fill beds and keep expenses low by skimping on staff.”

“Patient enrollment fell with the news of Mr. Jacksa’s arrest. In the ensuing years, Acadia pressured staff to find new ways to fill beds, according to eight former employees, who spoke on the condition that The Times not publish their names because they still work in the mental health industry.”

“Staff struggled to prevent patients from fighting, harming themselves and escaping the facility. In 2020, the Lemont police were called to Timberline Knolls 222 times, police said. By 2023, that number had soared to 519. No one else in Lemont made more emergency calls.”

“In a brief telephone call with The Times, Eiliana Silva, the director of J.P.’s [rape victim] residential unit, acknowledged that she had heard concerns from staff about Mr. Hampton [the rapist/employee] but said she could not properly supervise him because she was one of only two directors overseeing five lodges. As soon as she heard about J.P.’s complaint, she said, she relayed it to Timberline Knolls’ leadership.”

“At the time Timberline Knolls’ leadership heard the accusations against Mr. Hampton, the staff was still reeling from three other disasters.”

“In January 2023, Tiley McQuern, 50, was found dead in her bed after swallowing too many pills. A staff member told police that although employees were supposed to check on patients, those checks were “not thorough,” police records show.”

“Seven months later, a child, who had been placed at Timberline Knolls by the state’s child welfare agency, was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on medication that a staff member had left in a common area.”

“Then, in May 2024, another resident, 20-year-old Deborah Cobbs, threw herself down a staircase while no one was supervising her and died. She had tried to escape Timberline twice that day, police records show. Ms. Cobbs had also told several people that she was feeling suicidal, according to former employees who worked there at the time.”

So, what was Acadia’s response to this legion of corruption and harm to those entrusted to their care?

“Tim Blair, a spokesman for Acadia, said in a statement that the company had a zero-tolerance policy for behavior that could put staff or patients in danger. “We reject any notion that we put profits over patients,” he said, adding that “complaints and incidents are investigated and addressed.”

“Mr. Blair denied that Timberline Knolls had dangerous conditions and said it had adequate staffing levels.”

Another unidentified Acadia spokesperson said, “The recent New York Times story about Timberline Knolls, a closed Acadia facility, includes material inaccuracies and cherry-picks and conflates historical incidents to paint a false and inaccurate picture of the safety and quality of the care our facilities provide.”

Acadia’s corruption is vast. A report by the National Disability Rights Network detailed allegations of inappropriate physical restraints, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse at for-profit treatment centers, citing examples at Acadia facilities including an incident where a 9-year-old was injected with antihistamines as punishment at an Acadia facility in Montana.

In March 2025, three adolescents filed a lawsuit against Detroit Behavioral Institute, LLC and its owner, Acadia. The plaintiffs allege widespread sexual, physical, and psychological abuse inflicted on dozens of children. In fact, more than 35 people have come forward after they were reportedly abused as children at the Detroit Behavioral Institute between 2005-2022. The lawsuit alleges that the children were groomed, sexually assaulted and those that spoke out were retaliated against.

Naturally, Acadia closed the facility in 2022.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2025/03/11/trapped-in-a-jail-of-horrors-juvenile-detroit-facility-accused-of-abuse-cover-ups/

Acadia’s response to that lawsuit? “The well-being of all patients is of the utmost importance to Acadia Healthcare and its affiliated facilities. We take these allegations seriously. While we can’t comment on specific allegations and patient situations due to privacy regulations, the picture being painted of Acadia and the quality of care provided by our facilities is inaccurate. We intend to defend this case vigorously.”

It is enlightening that Acadia’s public response to both the Timberline Knolls scandals and the horrific allegations against Acadia’s Detroit facility utilize almost identical language … “the picture being painted of Acadia and the quality of care provided by our facilities is inaccurate.

In addition, the same day the New York Times published its story, Acadia released its own statement entitled, “Setting the Record Straight: Acadia is A Leader in Quality, Safe Behavioral Healthcare.”

That statement can be found here:

https://quality.acadiahealthcare.com/setting-the-record-straight-acadias-a-leader-in-quality-safe-behavioral-healthcare/

It should come as no surprise that Acadia once again uses its old stand by line, “Regrettably, a recent media report cherry picked and conflated historical incidents at a closed Acadia facility to paint a false and inaccurate picture of the safety and quality of the care our facilities provide.”

So apparently, medication overdoses causing death while under the watchful eyes of Acadia, two suicides in the facility within a year, a minor taken to a local hospital because of a drug overdose, numerous young women being sexually assaulted and raped, five hundred nineteen (519) 9-1-1 calls within one year all fall into the category of “false and inaccurate picture of the safety and quality of the care our facilities provide.”

So, painting an inaccurate picture? Like this?

Or is the painting inaccurate because it does not nearly portray the numerous additional instances of abuse, misconduct and neglect perpetrated by Acadia?

It seems as if Acadia anticipates these lawsuits and issues the same trite defensive language dripping in lawyer ick. For Acadia, it is merely the cost of doing business with our loved ones being nothing more than corporate commodities.

Acadia’s profiteering at the expense of its patients results in the dirtiest kind of money. And yet, our eating disorder organizations continue to close their eyes and continue to accept Acadia’s dirty money. In February, it was iaedp at its annual symposium.

Next month in San Antonio, it is AED’s turn to turn a blind eye and accept Acadia’s dirty money. In doing so, AED arguably becomes complicit in the following odious, reprehensible acts perpetrated by Acadia and its feckless employees:

Multiple rapes in their treatment facilities located in a number of states;
Multiple sexual assaults in their treatment facilities located in a number of states;
Multiple attempted suicides in their treatment facilities located in a number of states;
Multiple successful suicides in their treatment facilities located in a number of states;
Having your lack of oversight result in the death of a 5 year old child left under your care;
Acadia’s officers and Board of Directors engaged in a scheme to defraud and mislead investors concerning patient care, staffing levels and legal compliance issues;
Acadia and its employees submitting false claims for payment to Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE for inpatient behavioral health services that were not reasonable nor medically necessary;

There are many other woeful, reprehensible, unethical, illegal and criminal acts being perpetrated by this rogue organization. But even all of this is not enough to make eating disorder organizations take notice, stand up, and say enough, no more, no longer will we permit you to abuse the most helpless, vulnerable people in society. We refuse to be part of your misconduct.

Instead, like a common street walker, these organizations stand by with their hand extended willing to participate in any act no matter how vile, demeaning or degrading for its 30 pieces of silver.

IAEDP … WELCOME TO EPSTEIN ISLAND

Jeffrey Epstein’s international sex trafficking ring was based on his private island in the US Virgin Islands. The conduct of Epstein and his collaborators was horrific and evidenced the worst in human behavior. Those who visited the island, or for that matter, anyone who even associated with Epstein once news of his misconduct began to surface were looked upon as being complicit.

The consequences of being complicit are playing out in courtrooms. As they often do.

The US Virgin Islands sued JPMorgan Chase alleging that Chase facilitated and benefitted from the sex trafficking of young women. Chase filed a counterclaim alleging, “… the US. Virgin Islands was ‘complicit in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein,’” saying the sex predator gave high-ranking officials money, advice and favors in exchange for looking the other way. The parties settled the case with Chase paying $75 million. Of that amount, $55 million was directed to charities in the US Virgin Islands. [emphasis added]

Twelve (12) victims of Epstein’s filth sued the FBI for the FBI’s “repeated and continued failures, delays and inaction” which allowed Epstein to continue his sex trafficking operation for more than 20 years. [emphasis added]

The German bank, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay $75 million to victims of Epstein after the victims filed suit. They alleged the bank was complicit in the sex trafficking and chose profit over following the law. [emphasis added]

Epstein’s victims sued Epstein’s personal attorney and accountant alleging that those two professionals were complicit by continuing to conduct business with Epstein and provided additional means by which Epstein could continue his monstrous conduct even after having actual knowledge of his misconduct.

Epstein’s victims sued JPMorgan Chase alleging it was complicit with Epstein allowing him to continue his horrific conduct. Documents produced in the case showed that JPMorgan ignored internal warnings and overlooked red flags about Epstein because he had been a valuable client. As a result, JPMorgan paid $290 million in a settlement agreement to the victims.

A press release from JPMorgan to NPR stated: “We all now understand that Epstein’s behavior was monstrous, and we believe this settlement is in the best interest of all parties, especially the survivors, who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of this man. Any association with him was a mistake and we regret it. We would never have continued to do business with him if we believed he was using our bank in any way to help commit heinous crimes.” [emphasis added]

A lesson learned from the Epstein corruption is that knowledge of reprehensible conduct and continued association with a predator equate to acquiescence and being complicit.

Which brings us to iaedp … and Acadia Healthcare. Acadia’s reprehensible conduct has been the subject of widespread publicity. As such, we can and must presume that iaedp has actual knowledge of Acadia’s many unethical and illegal activities.

So why then is iaedp pandering to Acadia, accepting Acadia’s dirty money and like an amoral courtesan, crawling into bed with them?

Iaedp holds its first Symposium AB (After Bonnie) beginning February 21, 2025. As with all organizations which hold a conference, iaedp solicits and receives money from sponsors.

The business relationship between an organization and sponsor should be symbiotic. The sponsoring company provides financial support, goods, or services to the event in exchange for various promotional benefits, such as brand visibility, logo placement, speaking opportunities, or access to the event’s audience. The organization receives funding.

Any reasonable organization would closely vet sponsors to ensure that the sponsors are reputable and have a shared or compatible vision and mission. This duty is incredibly important.

And yet, what are we to make of an organization which has knowledge of numerous instances of unethical, illegal and/or harmful conduct perpetrated by its main sponsor and yet still welcomes them with open arms?

On its Symposium page under sponsors, the very first sponsor listed is … Acadia Healthcare.

https://iaedpfoundation.com/events/2025-symposiu

This despite the fact iaedp has knowledge that Acadia was eviscerated by the Senate Finance Committee in a damning report in June 2024 evidencing deceit and systemic abuse of patients;

The New York Times published a comprehensive article evidencing that Acadia was committing many wrongful and/or unethical acts towards patients;

Acadia agreed to pay a $19.8 million fine to the Department of Justice and three states;

Acadia agreed to pay another $1.38 million to the United States because of Acadia’s misconduct directed toward employees;

The Veteran’s Administration announced it was conducting its own investigation into Acadia;

The New York Times published a second report on Acadia evidencing that Acadia methadone clinics fraudulently billed Medicaid and other insurers for therapy sessions that did not take place, some clinics accepted patients who were not addicted to opioids to boost patient volume, and dozens of current and former employees at Acadia clinics in 22 states told the Times the clinics sometimes failed to provide adequate counseling to patients receiving treatment for opioid use disorder;

There are now at least four lawsuits filed against Acadia by disgruntled, angry investors. These lawsuits claim that Acadia, as a matter of its business practices and on a corporate wide basis, perpetrated widespread fraudulent acts and engaged in acts of misconduct and malfeasance;

In August of 2024, a civil case was filed alleging that one of Timberline Knolls employees raped a patient in May of last year;

Acadia agreed to pay $1,386,000 to the Securities Exchange Commission pursuant to a Cease-and-Desist Order entered on September 9, 2024. It was found that Acadia had, as a matter of its employment practices, violated rules permitting whistleblowers to receive a reward payment for reporting Acadia’s employment practices to the appropriate federal agency;

In May 2019, Acadia agreed to pay the federal government $17 million to settle allegations it defrauded Medicaid in West Virginia;

Since 2000, Acadia has paid approximately $49,000,000 in fines to federal and state agencies for other egregious conduct.

Rape. Sexual abuse. Emotional abuse. Mental Abuse. Fraud on the government. Fraud on families.

Acadia has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits in which it was found liable for that reprehensible conduct.

And yet, iaedp still embraces Acadia Healthcare with open arms and accepts their dirty money.

With Epstein, banking institutions and third parties were, and are being held accountable as collaborators and being complicit. Because they continued to accept dirty money. Because they profited. Because of their inaction. Because of their association.

The exact same conduct exhibited by iaedp.

However, in the eating disorder community … there is no accountability nor consequences imposed for reprehensible conduct.

The following exchange is attributed [incorrectly] to Winston Churchill:

“Churchill: “Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?” Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course… “

Churchill: “Would you sleep with me for five pounds?”

Socialite: “Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!”

Churchill: “Madam, we’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.”

Under Ms. Harken’s iron grip, iaedp through its own past misconduct (i.e., tax fraud, unfair and illegal certification program, filing forged documents with the Illinois Secretary of State) clearly established what it is.

So, we should not be surprised that iaedp has chosen to associate itself with one of the most corrupt mental health organizations in the United States. Through its association and acceptance of Acadia’s sponsorship dollars, iaedp is complicit in helping Acadia maintain whatever standing it has in the community.

Iaedp is willing to lie in bed with a corrupt entity so long as it is being paid. Which sounds very similar to the world’s oldest profession.

Now, iaedp has a choice to make.

Does it stand with the families about whom it professes to care? Families in incredible pain?

Or like an amoral courtesan, does it continue to lie with ethically bankrupt predators like Acadia?

Sadly, we all know what iaedp is going to do.

Iaedp had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to take a stance and at the very least, issue a statement strongly condemning Acadia’s repeated misconduct. Instead, iaedp chose to do nothing. It remained silent. It did nothing. That is … except taking Acadia’s dirty money and giving it a prominent place as a sponsor at its Symposium.

And we are left to wonder … as an amoral courtesan, how much dirty money did it take for iaedp to compromise all principles of decency and sell its soul … assuming it ever had one.

A DAD'S JOURNEY WITH EATING DISORDERS

Musings on Mental Health and the Eating Disorder Industry

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Five Million Dollars is not a Victory. It is an Indictment.

Gratitude for ?

HOW TO FIGHT DENIAL OF YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE CLAIM

UPDATE iaedp

LIVE OR DIES … Ai DECIDES

Research Grants, DEI and the Future

THE VICTIMS … THEIR FACES

IAEDP … WELCOME TO EPSTEIN ISLAND

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