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Eating disorder treatment designed for lasting recovery.
Equip’s virtual, evidence-based care empowers patients to beat the eating disorder and protect against relapse.
Eating disorder treatment designed for
lasting recovery
Covered by most insurance
All eating disorders treated
100% virtual
Multidisciplinary care team
Is it an eating disorder?
Who we treat
We treat patients of all ages in all 50 states with all types of eating disorders, as well as those without a formal diagnosis. We also treat co-occurring conditions like anxiety, depression, and OCD.
Free screeners
Is it an eating disorder?
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Is it ARFID?
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Who we help
We treat patients of all ages in all 50 states with all types of eating disorders, as well as those without a formal diagnosis. We also treat co-occurring conditions like anxiety, depression, and OCD.
We are in-network with most insurance plans
Because treatment should be accessible.
Plans include:
UnitedHealthCare, Optum, Cigna, Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Magellan, Carelon, Centene
... and many more private and Medicaid plans
Why Equip is differentOur virtual, evidence-based care is designed to help people recover from eating disorders for good—at home.
A dedicated, specialized care team treats every aspect of an eating disorder
You’re supported by a multidisciplinary team that includes a therapist, dietitian, medical provider, and mentors who have made it to the other side of recovery.
Virtual treatment means you don’t need to put life on pause
We take the leading eating disorder treatment modalities—CBT-E, DBT, FBT, and more—and bring them to patients. Treatment fits into your life, not the other way around.
Clinical expertise and lived experience give you human, outcome-driven care
Top experts in the field join forces with people who’ve been there (60% of our team has personal experience with an eating disorder) to deliver compassionate, data-driven care.
We help you identify and build a support network based on what works for you
We know recovery is possible for everyone with an eating disorder. It can be hard, but it’s worth it. We’ll keep you on track and support your every step.
Why Equip is differentClinical expertise combined with lived experience gives you the comprehensive support you need
It works
We rigorously monitor outcomes and use only the leading, evidence-based treatment modalities.
Dedicated multidisciplinary care team
Patients are supported as needed with therapy, nutritional counseling, medical care, and mentorship from people with lived experience.
More than just appointments
Equip patients and their loved ones have access to an abundance of resources beyond provider sessions: support groups, workshops, meal support, body image work, and more.
Support from all sides
We bring each patient’s village into the treatment process: family, chosen family, friends, mentors. Whatever the configuration, we help every patient create a vast support network to catch them if they stumble.
Individualized care
We get to know each patient and develop a treatment plan that’s tailored to their unique needs, goals, and challenges. We pull from the leading evidence-based modalities to craft a personalized approach that works.
Virtual treatment means you don’t need to put life on pause
We take the leading eating disorder treatment modalities—CBT-E, DBT, FBT, and more—and bring them to patients. Treatment fits into your life, not the other way around.
Clinical expertise and lived experience give you human, outcome-driven care
Top experts in the field join forces with people who’ve been there (60% of our team has personal experience with an eating disorder) to deliver compassionate, data-driven care.
We help you identify and build a support network based on what works for you
We know recovery is possible for everyone with an eating disorder. It can be hard, but it’s worth it. We’ll keep you on track and support your every step.
A dedicated, specialized care team treats every aspect of an eating disorder
You’re supported by a multidisciplinary team that includes a therapist, dietitian, medical provider, and mentors who have made it to the other side of recovery.
Learn more about our treatment approach
Why Equip is different
Why Equip is differentClinical expertise combined with lived experience gives you the comprehensive support you need
We rigorously monitor outcomes and use only the leading, evidence-based treatment modalities.
No need to commute to appointments, coordinate schedules, or press pause on daily life and responsibilities. Equip’s virtual treatment means patients can use recovery skills exactly where and when they’re needed, preparing them for life after treatment.
Patients are supported as needed with therapy, nutritional counseling, medical care, and mentorship from people with lived experience.
Equip patients and their loved ones have access to an abundance of resources beyond provider sessions: support groups, workshops, meal support, body image work, and more.
We bring each patient’s village into the treatment process: family, chosen family, friends, mentors. Whatever the configuration, we help every patient create a vast support network to catch them if they stumble.
We get to know each patient and develop a treatment plan that’s tailored to their unique needs, goals, and challenges. We pull from the leading evidence-based modalities to craft a personalized approach that works.
See what treatment looks like
What level of care is Equip?
In traditional treatment, patients “step down” from one level of care to the next as they make progress toward recovery. With Equip, patients stay with the same team through every stage of recovery, getting continuous care that leads to better outcomes.
Virtual by design
You won't uproot your lifeNo need to commute to appointments, coordinate schedules, or press pause on your day-to-day. Equip’s virtual treatment means you can stay connected to what matters most in your life while in treatment.
You build support in the real worldTrue recovery doesn’t happen in a vacuum. You’ll learn to use recovery skills exactly where and when they’re needed: at home, at school or work, with family and friends.
Designed for lasting recoveryResearch shows online eating disorder treatment is just as effective as in-person care.
See what treatment looks like day-to-day
We are in-network with most insurance plans
Because treatment should be accessible.
Plans include:
UnitedHealthCare, Optum, Cigna, Aetna, Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Magellan, Carelon, Centene
... and many more private and Medicaid plans
Talk to an eating disorder expert
Any information you provide is secure and confidential.
Equip offers specialized care from leading clinical experts and is the largest ARFID treatment provider in the U.S. Speak with a member of our team to explore your next steps—any information you share is secure and confidential.
Our patients are experiencing an early and sustained response to Equip treatment
Patients requiring weight restoration who reached their target weight
After 16 weeks
49%
Average weekly weight gain for those who need it
After 1 year
75%
Average weekly weight gain for those who need it
Average decrease in eating disorder symptoms
After 16 weeks
47%
Average weekly weight gain for those who need it
After 1 year
66%
Average weekly weight gain for those who need it
Frequently Asked QuestionsYou want to be informed and confident when you make a choice about treatment. We address common questions on this page—but please reach out if you still have any concerns or questions.

We tailor treatment to each patient’s unique needs by using a variety of evidence-based treatment approaches.

Here’s a simple breakdown of the evidence-based approaches we most frequently use:

  • Family-based treatment (FBT): FBT is based on the idea that family members are best suited to help their loved one recover. Research shows that for children and adolescents with eating disorders, FBT has the highest rates of recovery and the lowest rates of relapse.
  • Enhanced cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-E): CBT-E focuses on challenging unhelpful thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that keep an eating disorder going.
  • Cognitive behavioral therapy for ARFID (CBT-AR): CBT-AR uses personalized strategies to address patients' unique ARFID symptoms, including sensory sensitivities, food-related fears, and lack of interest or poor appetite.
  • Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT): DBT provides tools to help people regulate and cope with difficult emotions.
  • Temperament-based therapy with supports (TBT-S): TBT-S helps patients understand how their temperament traits (e.g. perfectionism, impulsivity, and determination) may contribute to their eating disorder symptoms, and how they can channel these traits into building a life outside of the eating disorder.
  • Exposure and response prevention (ERP): ERP focuses on helping people face their fears and triggers. These may include specific fear foods or social situations that contribute to eating disorder behaviors.

You can learn more about Equip’s treatment approaches here.

Equip uses the leading, evidence-based treatment modalities that are proven to be effective in treating eating disorders. Research shows that these methods are just as effectively delivered virtually as in-person treatment. Our team educates and supports you every step of the way, empowering you with the skills to monitor weights and vitals at home, as well as prepare and plate all food.

Virtual treatment also has many added benefits. It allows for flexible scheduling, integrates family and friends into the recovery process, and lets patients develop coping skills in their real life, leading to lasting recovery and relapse prevention.

Once you or your loved one has reached medical stability, Equip is an effective alternative for patients across a wide spectrum of acuity levels, including those who might otherwise seek residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, or traditional outpatient treatment.

The reality is that effective treatment does take time. But unlike in-person care, which requires you to put life on pause, virtual treatment lets you attend sessions when and where it works for you.

Equip patients fit treatment into their lives in many different ways. While many people take their sessions from home, we also have students joining from a teacher’s office at school, working adults dialing in from a break room, even patients attending appointments from a parking lot.

The initial two weeks of treatment are relatively intense in terms of the number of appointments, but after that, your provider team will work with you to schedule sessions at times that your busy life can accommodate.

There is no waitlist for Equip, so treatment can start on a timeline that works for you. For some patients, medical clearance is needed before treatment can begin. Your admissions specialist will coordinate your start date with you, and review the steps to complete before your first session. Learn more about the admissions process here.

Our founders created Equip’s comprehensive treatment model to fill the gaps they’d seen in existing care. Drawing on their combined decades of clinical and lived experience, they designed Equip to deliver the most effective components of evidence-based treatment to patients and their support networks at home, where skills can be applied directly to everyday life. Equip also incorporates additional elements like mentors with lived experience and support groups to promote lasting recovery.

While we believe that involvement from supportive people around you can be helpful in recovery, we don’t require family or other supports to be part of the process. You can also start on your own, then work with your team to identify who might be a good support and determine the best way to involve them in treatment.

Equip is in-network with most major insurance plans, and you can check your coverage with our insurance screener. Our team will also verify your insurance information before you start at Equip to make sure we are in-network for your insurance and review how your plan coverage will impact any cost share (copays or coinsurance) you may be responsible for. If Equip is not in-network with your insurance, we offer a private pay option. A financial counselor will work with you directly to review costs and options such as HSA/FSA eligibility.

If you’re concerned your loved one may have an eating disorder, approach the conversation from a place of curiosity and compassion. Eating disorders are secretive illnesses and are often accompanied by feelings of shame. It’s important to avoid accusations or any implication they may be doing something “wrong.”

It’s often best to begin by asking an open-ended question, like, “I’ve noticed you haven't been at family dinners recently. Why do you think that is?” Don’t be discouraged if your first attempt at a conversation doesn’t unfold perfectly. Eating disorders work hard to protect themselves; continue to approach future conversations in the same way.

Learn more about how to talk to a loved one with an eating disorder on our blog.

When the body is malnourished, the brain is, too. This is true of all eating disorder patients. A malnourished brain doesn’t think clearly or take in new information well. People who are malnourished are more likely to be depressed, anxious, and have trouble paying attention. Evidence shows that individual therapy isn’t effective in the early stages of eating disorder recovery when a patient is malnourished.

Because of this, the first step in Equip treatment is to normalize eating habits, restore nutrition, and gain weight (if needed). Then, we can shift the focus to individual therapy, using evidence-based interventions like DBT, CBT-E, exposure therapy, and others. As eating disorder symptoms improve and disappear, we can also shift the focus of therapy to other conditions the patient may have, like OCD, anxiety, and depression.

Throughout their time with Equip, patients also have access to groups and mentorship for ongoing validation, connection, and support.

Length of treatment varies from patient to patient, but the average patient in remission discharges after 51 weeks. This may sound long, but the length of treatment is specifically designed to prevent relapse, which is so common for these illnesses. Additionally, since patients go through treatment from home, treatment doesn’t impede their lives or the lives of their loved ones, and many of our insurance partners provide coverage for at least a year.

Generally, treatment begins as a high-touch process with several appointments per week, and gradually becomes a lower-touch experience as each patient moves through their treatment journey and toward recovery.

During the intake appointment with their Equip dietitian, patients and their supports receive a personalized recommendation around weight goals and monitoring. For young patients who need to gain weight, this generally means twice-weekly closed weights (formerly known as blind weights) at home. For adult patients, the decision to do open or closed weighing is decided on an individual basis, taking into account their treatment plan and preferences. All adult patients have the option of receiving a BodyTrace scale which enables at-home weight measuring without seeing the numbers, and sends data directly and discreetly to the patient's care team.

While weights are shared openly with parents and caregivers, we work with families to make a collaborative decision about whether it would be constructive to share weight numbers with younger patients. We also create a plan to handle potential responses triggered by doing so.

We follow the American Psychiatric Association Practice Guidelines and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine factors to support hospitalization to determine if a patient may need to be hospitalized for medical stabilization. From the very outset, an Equip medical provider will work in conjunction with your outside primary care provider to determine medical status and coordinate hospitalization if it’s needed.

If you or your loved one does need inpatient stabilization, your Equip team will continue to coordinate with outside providers throughout hospitalization. This ensures that when it’s time for discharge, patients can seamlessly transition from inpatient hospitalization back into our care.

Our provider team includes trained and licensed therapists, medical providers, and dietitians, all of whom specialize in eating disorders, as well as certified mentors for both the patient and the people supporting them.

Every therapist is licensed (with licenses such as LCSW, LMFT, AMFT, and others) and has training in eating disorder treatment. Our medical providers are MDs (physicians, pediatricians, or psychiatrists), registered nurses, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners with training in eating disorders. Every dietitian has been licensed as an RD and has experience working with patients with eating disorders.

Our mentors are Equip employees who either have lived experience with an eating disorder (meaning they have recovered from an eating disorder themselves) or have helped a loved one recover from an eating disorder. Mentors also receive specialized mentorship training through Equip.

All Equip providers receive ongoing training and supervision.

You can take this free screener to get a sense of how at risk you or your loved one may be of an eating disorder and better understand the key signs. If the screener indicates that you or your loved one are at risk, or if you’re still worried regardless, we recommend getting a professional consultation. You can reach out to your primary care physician, or schedule a free consultation with Equip.

Who attends appointments depends on a few factors, including the age of the patient and which loved ones will be involved in treatment.

Certain appointments, like peer mentor sessions, are for the patient alone, while family mentor sessions are just for loved ones. For young patients doing family-based treatment (FBT), family members will be involved in more sessions, whereas older patients and those not doing FBT may have more solo appointments.

We encourage you to “bring your village” to treatment, because we know that doing so improves odds of lasting recovery. But we also know that looks different for each person, and we’ll work with you to find a balance that feels right.

What patients say about Equip
Heading into uncharted waters is never easy. Us dads do not always feel up to the task. The storm will still rage, but Equip will keep you off the rocks.
Father of 14-year old with anorexia
Anorexia felt like trekking through a dense jungle–overwhelming. Equip lifted the fog and handed us the map
Dad of a 12-year-old with anorexia
Equip was there for us day and night. Any time we needed help they held our hands and walked us through the darkness; all we had to do was trust their professional expertise.
Sister of a 19-year old woman with anorexia
Not only did Equip help me with the day to day treatment of my child's eating disorder, but I also felt like I was no longer alone in the fight.Mother of a 15-year-old with anorexia
This has been the missing link on our journey. The convenience of scheduling; virtual options; complete team of providers; it is saving my daughter's life.Mother of a 13-year-old girl with ARFID
I love the team approach that touches every aspect. Their positive approach has inspired my son to want to improve and take a lot of the initiative to do so himself.Mother of a 18-year-old son with OSFED
Admissions at Equip
Walk through our admissions process to better understand the steps between reaching out and starting treatment.
Explore Equip admissions
Frequently asked questions
In traditional treatment, patients “step down” from one level of care to the next as they make progress toward recovery. With Equip, patients stay with the same team through every stage of recovery, getting continuous care that leads to better outcomes.
On average, it takes about 2-3 weeks for people to finish our admissions process. Your admissions specialist will review your specific situation and coordinate your admissions date with you.
Our team will verify your insurance information before you start at Equip. If Equip is in-network with your insurance, you can expect your plan's copays or coinsurance. Throughout your time with Equip, our financial counselors are available to help with any questions or concerns related to your costs. If Equip is not in-network with your insurance, we offer a private pay option. A financial counselor will work with you directly to review costs and options such as HSA/FSA eligibility.
Recovery looks different for everyone, so there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. However, at Equip, we seek insurance authorization for up to a year of treatment. This might seem like a long time, but it doesn’t mean that you’re going to multiple weekly sessions for a full year. You’ll start off with a high frequency of appointments, but then they’ll taper off as you make progress through treatment. Usually, patients stabilize before the year is over, and then have the support of their team as they navigate those vulnerable first few months in recovery. This protects patients against relapse and gives them a safety net if they stumble.
Our provider team includes trained and licensed therapists, medical providers, and dietitians, all of whom specialize in eating disorders, as well as certified mentors for both the patient and the people supporting them. Every therapist is licensed (with licenses such as LCSW, LMFT, AMFT, and others) and has training in eating disorder treatment. Our medical providers are MDs (physicians, pediatricians, or psychiatrists), registered nurses, and nurse practitioners with training in eating disorders. Every dietitian has been licensed as an RD and has experience working with patients with eating disorders. Our mentors are Equip employees who either have lived experience with an eating disorder (meaning they have recovered from an eating disorder themselves) or have helped a loved one recover from an eating disorder. Mentors also receive specialized mentorship training through Equip. All Equip providers receive ongoing training and supervision.
While we believe that support from those around you is helpful in recovery, we don’t require that you involve family or other supports. You can also start on your own, then work with your team to identify who might be a good support and determine the best way to involve them in treatment.
We tailor treatment to each patient using a variety of evidenced-based modalities, including: FBT, CBT-E and CBT-AR, DBT, ERP, and more. We also treat co-occurring conditions like mood disorders and anxiety when the time is right. During the admissions process, we’ll gather a lot of background on what behaviors are currently present, and your therapist will have an in-depth session with you to outline what your treatment plan will look like.
Our admissions process begins with a no-obligation phone call. From there, our team will work with you to discuss your options and see if Equip is the right fit for you. Visit our admissions page to learn about what happens between reaching out and starting treatment.
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