The eating disorder treatment sector has transformed dramatically in the past few years, with 2025 poised to bring further disruption through virtual care expansion, market consolidation and evolving patient needs.

This evolution is occurring on the heels of a string of notable eating disorder treatment facility closures in 2023 and 2024. 

Despite the shuttering of multiple players in the field, 2025 will be a prime year for increased investment, de novo growth and mergers and acquisitions, according to top industry leaders.

Providers looking to thrive must still hone their research, clinical and growth techniques. Focusing on cutting-edge treatments, coping with new challenges, including GLP-1 medications’ impact on eating disorders, and advocating for reduced stigma will keep providers occupied in the new year.

Eating disorder treatment companies must also grapple with commercial-payer relationships. Some experts suggest that payers increasingly accept the need for eating disorder treatment. In contrast, others say that providers are still working to keep patients in the correct level of care for the necessary amount of time.

Virtual treatment options will also continue to be top of mind in 2025 as providers determine the best course of care for individual patients. New digital tools also show promise for aiding eating disorder treatment.

As 2024 winds to a close, industry leaders shared with Behavioral Health Business their answers to pressing questions about what lies ahead for eating disorder treatment in 2025. Here’s what they had to say.

The trends that will characterize 2025

“New diet culture trends and fixations will create new food obsessions and restrictive mindsets, driving an increase in disordered eating and an increase in demand for eating disorder treatment. The current scrutiny on seed oils and preservatives comes to mind as to how these fear-based diet culture narratives can take hold and shape eating patterns. Simultaneously, the normalization of restrictive eating in wellness spaces under the guise of “clean eating” or “biohacking” will continue to blur the line between healthy habits and disordered behaviors.”

– Dr. Cara Bohon, senior vice president of clinical programs at Equip

“Successful treatment programs in 2025 will demonstrate a commitment to the training, development, and supervision of their staff to ensure treatment teams are enabled to deliver quality services. In addition, individuals suffering from eating disorders and their loved ones will continue to search for accessible eating disorder treatment with the least amount of disturbance to their lives.

Our goal at Alsana is to meet the moment in 2025 by investing in our clinical teams and by expanding our virtual services to become the most accessible quality option for individuals suffering from an eating disorder.”

– Jordan Watson, CEO of Alsana

“We see increasing awareness and efforts being made to remove barriers to care; this is resulting in meeting the true needs of those suffering from an eating disorder. We recently released our 2024 comprehensive outcomes, which is the largest longitudinal study of clients in eating disorder treatment programs. The data from over 12,00 clients provides valuable insight into trends and paints a vivid picture of the strides being made in the field and within Monte Nido’s programs. A few of the meaningful insights are: 58% of our clients are at or above average weight per CDC criteria at admission, and 85% of our clients have a co-occurring mental health diagnosis, which we treat simultaneously.”

– Cassie McLean, CEO, Monte Nido

“Thinking ahead to 2025 and reflecting on what’s been accomplished this past year, I believe eating disorder treatment providers embedded in the latest research for treating patients will continue to have the advantage.

While I don’t anticipate any major shifts in 2025 among the existing leading national providers in our field, we can’t stay stagnant. And in reflecting on our learnings from 2024, we know that post-COVID virtual care is here to stay and is an important piece in the full continuum of care. We saw several programs shrink or close, but those were mainly among providers who weren’t focused on eating disorders as their core business. Because eating disorders demand a greater dedication and investment in specific resources and skills than any other mental illnesses, those of us for whom it’s a primary business line will continue to more successfully navigate the market trends.”

– Goran Dragolovic, CEO of Eating Recovery Center and Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center (ERC Pathlight)

“2024 was a year of contrasts, marked in particular by a meaningful amount of contraction. Eating disorder (ED) treatment is still a highly specialized segment within behavioral health (and getting worse with social media harms!). But there has been exciting progress too, as ED treatment becomes more widely recognized and destigmatized. We expect trends like the continued shift toward remote treatment solutions, wider adoption by commercial payers and resilient operators pursuing expansion opportunities.”

– Abhilash Patel, co-founder and president of Within Health

The 2025 eating disorder treatment industry investment outlook

“Like many other categories, we feel ED treatment is warming up again after one to two years of turbulence, although opportunistic investors in Q1-Q2 will still need to be judicious. By the year’s second half, we’ll see multiple positive indicators in concert with improved external market conditions: M&A/consolidation will likely return, continued wider recognition of the growing epidemic of eating disorders and disciplined, technology-embracing operators demonstrating top decile performance.

– Abhilash Patel, co-founder and president of Within Health

“As things are stabilizing, and assuming inflationary pressures continue to settle down, particularly later in 2025, I can see new opportunities arising for both de novo and merger and acquisition investments. I believe this will be driven by broader macroeconomic dynamics, not necessarily unique to our industry.

What is more unique to us is the fact that there remains a meaningful amount of people who don’t get the help they need for their eating disorders. So as we continue to overcome the challenges of educating the public, informing and supporting parents, and destigmatizing eating disorders, we will create new opportunities for investment and expansion.”

– Goran Dragolovic, CEO of ERC Pathlight

“There was a sizable increase during COVID for the serviceable, addressable market for eating disorder treatment opportunities and it has had a slower, but steady growth in the last couple of years. As with other provider services in growing sectors, the investment thesis remains strong for organizations that are doing the work we are committed to at Monte Nido, which is delivering high-quality care informed by robust clinical outcomes, continued investment in team and infrastructure offering all levels of care, demonstrated proof points on organic growth and the expanded new service lines. The investment outlook is strong for treatment providers that are creating value through these channels and who can work with other payor/provider organizations that also see the value in this approach.”

– Cassie McLean, CEO, Monte Nido

“The industry has an opportunity to deliver highly profitable growth through thoughtful expansion of quality treatment services that pace with post-pandemic demand trends. In addition, potential attractive investments in the space will operate accessible evidenced-based virtual treatment programs as well as the traditional full continuum of in-person care so any individual can easily enter treatment at any point and if needed move through other levels of care in their course of treatment.”

– Jordan Watson, CEO of Alsana

The challenges in store for eating disorder treatment providers in 2025

“An ongoing challenge for us is that eating disorders remain a small piece of the broader behavioral health world, both in recognition and understanding by the public and in terms of treatment options. In the last few years, mental health more generally has been woven into the mainstream narrative with increased understanding and empathy. We’ve seen a little of that for eating disorders, but by and large, they remain in the shadows.

Additionally, only a small percentage of behavioral health professionals are trained or have experience in eating disorder care. So getting the right staffing to serve the specialized needs of patients will continue to be an operating challenge for the space.”

– Goran Dragolovic, CEO of ERC Pathlight

“GLP-1 medications and their negative impact on body image, fatphobia, and restrictive and disordered eating will continue to challenge eating disorder treatment providers. Their increased accessibility driven by compounding pharmacies and their omnipresent marketing will continue to amplify disordered eating behaviors and complicate recovery efforts. Combined with the influx of patients being prescribed GLP-1s for eating disorders such as binge eating without sufficient research on its impact on those with eating disorders, providers will have to balance immediate symptom management with a deeper focus on sustainable recovery.”

– Dr. Cara Bohon, senior vice president of clinical programs at Equip

“For many, there has long been the need for more access to commercial payer coverage, which keeps patients from getting the needed level of care. That will continue in 2025, but with the emergence and magnitude of lighter-acuity solutions, operators will have to work together to ensure patients get the appropriate level of care that’s best for them. Growing industries with new entrants don’t always play nice in the sandbox, so clinical integrity must come first.”

– Abhilash Patel, co-founder and president of Within Health

“In 2025, I anticipate that eating disorder treatment providers will be required to manage high levels of acuity at all levels of care. The challenge is how to regularly equip staff members with the training needed to deliver best-in-class treatment. The most successful providers will invest at the clinical site level to ensure treatment teams are able to navigate complex eating disorders and co-occurring symptoms at every level of care.”

– Jordan Watson, CEO of Alsana

“Our providers are seeing the medical and psychiatric needs of our clients increase. For example, our specialized care for clients with eating disorders and diabetes mellitus (EDDM), requires unique staffing and infrastructure to provide expert care and achieve lasting clinical and medical improvements. Given this challenge, we are working with several payers on quality metrics and payments to reflect the level of specialization and effort associated with the care being provided. We are also working with expanded audiences to have ED screening completed within their care workflows to help eating disorder identification happen earlier if possible.”

– Cassie McLean, CEO, Monte Nido

The opportunities available to eating disorder treatment providers in 2025

“Early intervention and accessible treatment continue to be a significant opportunity in the eating disorder field. Providers have a unique opportunity to ensure suffering individuals can enter treatment quickly through easily accessible virtual treatment programs. Alsana plans to invest heavily in virtual expansion in 2025 to provide quality treatment with flexible schedule options for clients as an initial point of entry into treatment.”

– Jordan Watson, CEO of Alsana

“Closures of in-person higher levels of care facilities present an opportunity to better understand who benefits from these facilities. While recovering at home and creating a life worth living without an eating disorder is possible, there are cases where greater supervision and support provided by in-person higher levels of care facilities are helpful in the initial regulation of eating patterns and cessation of eating disorder behaviors. Clearly defining these circumstances can create a seamless continuum of care, where high-quality facilities transition patients to strong virtual care at home once greater supervision is no longer needed. This optimizes outcomes and reduces the overall cost of higher-level care making recovery more accessible.”

– Dr. Cara Bohon, senior vice president of clinical programs at Equip

“We need to do a better job educating health plans, driving home the message that because of the physical component of eating disorders, they require a unique set of interventions that are going to look different from what they’re covering for other behavioral health conditions. We have to really make them aware of and understand the different levels of care, and why it’s so important for patients to remain in each level of care until they’re ready to step down.

It will be better for everyone – most importantly the patient, but ultimately for the payer as well – if patients can remain in each level of care for the appropriate amount of time, setting them up for lasting wellness. We will never stop fighting for our patients to be covered for the appropriate level of intervention they need.”

– Goran Dragolovic, CEO of ERC Pathlight

“We offer all levels of care via both in-person and virtual treatment options. As a result, our teams and model can meet clients where they are to find the right level of care to achieve lasting outcomes from admission to discharge, and 6 months post-discharge. We believe alignment around level of care criteria is a big opportunity and would help streamline some of the administrative burden. Additionally, it will help ensure people with eating disorders are recommended treatment options with the highest likelihood of recovery in the shortest amount of time.”

– Cassie McLean, CEO, Monte Nido

“The population in the US and beyond is still woefully underserved. Addiction treatment was like this 15 years ago, and that’s an incredible opportunity for thoughtful investors. With wider social (and medical) recognition, millions more patients will seek the care they need. Meanwhile, better acceptance by commercial payers along with opportunities to leverage digital tools for enhanced operational efficiencies will push the best operators back into growth mode.”

– Abhilash Patel, co-founder and president of Within Health