Eating disorders are serious mental health conditions that, unfortunately, don’t go away on their own. While it’s always possible to recover from an eating disorder, specialized treatment is often needed to overcome these illnesses.
Thankfully, technology has expanded not only the types of treatment that can be made available but how, when, and where that treatment can be administered.
What is Remote Treatment?
Remote treatment—sometimes called virtual or online treatment—is medical care primarily administered over the internet. It can and usually does, involve a mixture of chat rooms, video chats, apps, text messaging, phone calls, and online reading or educational modules.
Online treatment can be administered across several levels of care, including:
- Outpatient treatment: Where a patient has regular online appointments with a therapist and/or support group.
- Intensive outpatient programs (IOPs): A more robust version of outpatient, which is a few hours, 3-5 days a week, and may include more frequent or longer appointments and additional meetings with support groups or other treatment team members.
- Partial hospitalization programs (PHPs): A very intensive form of care where a patient spends several hours a day, up to every day of the week, working through different treatments with various members of their treatment team. A cornerstone of PHP is group and individual meal and snack support, where ED rules and beliefs can be identified and challenged.
While not appropriate in every case, remote treatment can be helpful at nearly every point in someone’s recovery journey.
Key Benefits of Remote Treatment
Remote treatment for eating disorders may be relatively new, but the modality has already revealed a number of benefits for patients.
Wider Availability
One of the biggest and most obvious benefits of virtual treatment for eating disorders is the nearly limitless availability of these programs. Unlike traditional in-person (also called brick-and-mortar) care, which calls for physical proximity to a treatment center, virtual care requires only an internet connection.
This opens up treatment availability to a much larger number of patients, including those living in rural or underserved areas where in-person care may be difficult to come by. Online support groups can also work to bring together groups of people with similar backgrounds or experiences who would otherwise be too far away to physically meet.
Greater Flexibility
Since treatment takes place primarily online, and most people have the internet at home or on their phone, it’s much easier to schedule sessions during times that are most convenient for a patient or provider, even if they’re outside traditional office hours.
This can be particularly helpful for patients with busy or frequently changing schedules or those who need to juggle treatment with additional responsibilities, such as work or family obligations.
Program Cost
The cost of eating disorder care varies widely depending on the level of treatment required, the specifics of a patient’s insurance plan, and many other individual factors. Still, virtual/remote programs are generally more cost-effective than in-person care, particularly inpatient programs, which can be exorbitantly expensive.
Greater Convenience
Removing the need to commute back and forth to sessions frees up a lot of time, money, and planning for patients. And many may feel more comfortable communicating through the various formats of online care.
This method of treatment can be especially helpful for patients who struggle with social anxiety, PTSD, or other related conditions, which can make it especially stressful to leave the house, be in a clinical environment, or plan in-person trips.
Remote Treatment vs. In-Person Treatment
One of the biggest benefits of remote treatment is that it can be just as effective as in-person care.
Remote treatment is still relatively new, and studies on its effectiveness are ongoing, but what analyses have been done on the subject have found online care to have similar results to in-person programs, including improvements in: (1,2,3)
- Eating disorder symptoms
- Symptoms of depression
- Weight gain (in cases where that was deemed appropriate)
- Stabilization of medical consequences of eating disorders (e.g., nutritional rehabilitation for all forms of eating disorders)
Still, remote treatment may not be recommended for all cases. For example, patients with unstable vital signs and/or labs or other forms of medical acuity may benefit from inpatient or brick-and-mortar stays before transitioning to a virtual program. Ultimately, whether remote care is right for a patient should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
Regardless of how a patient receives treatment, the important thing is for them to get the help they need—and deserve.
Dr. Shaun Riebl, PhD, RDN, is the Chief Nutrition Officer at Within, a remote eating disorder treatment program. He has held assistant professorships at UNC Chapel Hill and The University of Mississippi and research positions at Duke University.
Chrissy Stockert, RN, is the Chief Health Officer at Within and has more than 10 years of experience working in the field of eating disorders. In addition to caring for patients directly, Chrissy also spearheads the compliance efforts of Within, including state licensing and Joint Commission accreditation.
Sources
- Steiger, H., Booij, L., Crescenzi, O., Oliverio, S., Singer, I., Thaler, L., St-Hilaire, A., & Israel, M. (2022). In-person versus virtual therapy in outpatient eating-disorder treatment: A COVID-19 inspired study. The International Journal of Eating Disorders, 55(1), 145–150.
- Van Huysse, J. L., Prohaska, N., Miller, C., Jary, J., Sturza, J., Etsell, K., & Bravender, T. (2023). Adolescent eating disorder treatment outcomes of an in-person partial hospital program versus a virtual intensive outpatient program. The International Journal of Eating Disorders, 56(1), 192–202.
- The Within Results. (n.d.). Within.com.