Aetna and Equip to Roll Out Virtual Treatment for Eating Disorders

Aetna has announced that it is partnering with eating disorder treatment provider Equip to provide virtual treatment services to the insurer’s commercial members.

The program will initially be rolled out to Aetna members in California, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington, with hopes to roll it out to more states next year.

The news comes after Equip is fresh off raising $58 million in a Series B funding round led by The Chernin Group. To date, the company has raised $74.7 million, according to fundraising tracking site Crunchbase.

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Aetna – which is owned by pharmacy giant CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) – said it was drawn to the partnership because of Equip’s’ evidence-based approach to treating eating disorders.

“The need for access to evidence-based eating disorder treatment has never been greater,” Cara McNulty, the president of behavioral health and mental wellbeing for Aetna, said in a press release. “It is essential that we provide our members with personalized treatments that also account for the well-being of the whole family.”

Launched in 2019, San Diego-based Equip offers services in over 40 states and is in-network with 10 major commercial health insurance plans in addition to the Partnership HealthPlan, which is a Medicaid plan provider.

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Equip’s services are based on the Family-Based Treatment (FBT) model and are provided by a five-person care team consisting of therapists, physicians, peer and family mentors, as well as dietitians.

According to the company, the services it provides result in a 71% reduction in symptoms of users after eight weeks, along with two-thirds reporting improvements.

“We started Equip with a vision to bring evidence-based care to every person in the United States who has an eating disorder,” Equip Co-founder and CEO Kristina Saffran said in the press release. “Our combination of lived and clinical expertise provides patients with the care they need, and our partnership with Aetna will allow us to reach even more people and make recovery possible.”

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