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February 25, 2008, 6:44 pm PST
Treatment is often not covered!
Quote From: jenuinejDear Lord, this young woman needs help NOW! Why is she not in the hospital?! I can't imagine enabling someone to get to this point...I'm surprised she's able to stand. At what point do we decide to do more then to just sit idlely by and watch this poor lady destroy herself, her life.
I had to turn the channel at points, it was so difficult to see her struggle to the point where she's literally a skeleton. It's sickening, and my heart goes out to this woman. She needs to know that she HAS to change, stop getting pity and negative attention from people, and deal with her anger that's leading her to do this to herself.
I pray for her recovery, although I wonder how long she has left? God Bless. My daughter is anorexic. We did catch it early, but getting treatment is not easy. I wanted her admitted as soon as it looked like outpatient treatment was not working, but the insurance wouldn't help pay, because she wasn't "sick enough" yet. Then, once she had damaged her heart and was finally admitted, there was a limit for how long she could stay. Because this is considered a mental illness, insurance can limit inpatient days, something that is illegal for them to do with other medical conditions. The copays are also a lot higher, and there is no out-of-pocket limits.
I am a single parent with limited resources. I had to go into serious debt to pay for her treatment. We are lucky, she is getting better. However, every day at the hospital I talked to parents who were backed against a wall. If you already have mortgaged everything you own and have borrowed from everyone you can, and your child is still not better, what do you do? Inpatient treatment costs up to $2000 or more a day, and most people require months of treament. The insurance companies can deny coverage for almost any reason-- which few people understand--as long as they continue to call it a "mental illness" because the regulations are so much more lax than for other medical conditions.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened to this family.
My heart goes out to this family! It is so hard to watch this happen to someone you love, and people often don't understand that it is not about the food. Once a person reaches this level, their cognitive abilities are so compromised that they don't even understand how sick they are.
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