Happy New Year!

 

As we wrap up 2013, we want to reflect on some of the highlights for us throughout the year. 2013  was a very successful year for the EDC, and we are particularly proud of these key accomplishments:

• The EDC urged Senators and Members of Congress to send Senate and House letters to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging parity for eating disorders. We are thrilled that HHS clarified the regulations in their final rule in a way that should increase access to care for people with eating disorders (such as clarifying equity in coverage for residential treatment).
• A new Request for Applications (RFA) was released in March as a result of EDC’s success in securing report language in the FY2013 Health and Human Services Appropriations bill.
• The EDC conducted a comprehensive survey of the Benchmark plans to be offered through the State Exchanges, and how eating disorders would be covered in each of the 50 states.
• We worked with House Champions to get the FREED Act introduced with 15 original cosponsors.
• We hosted two successful Lobby Days, including our most widely attended lobby day in EDC history. Both lobby days were supported with a virtual lobby day, and the advocacy events were live tweeted.
• We launched a state leader initiative to assist in the implementation of the state exchanges and improve our grassroots campaigns.
• We regularly meet with House and Senate staff on a variety of legislative priorities and advocate for the advance of federal eating disorders policy including:  FREED and the Mental Illness Awareness and   Prevention Act (S.689).
• We participated in a variety of coalition efforts including: supported Binge Eating Disorder Awareness Week with a comprehensive social media strategy, and participated in the efforts led by  BEDA and BingeBehavior.com to positively influence Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign
• We continued our goal of meeting with all 535 Congressional offices each year.

We hope 2013 has been a great year for you! We are looking forward to 2014, and are optimistic that the EDC will be able to accomplish even more in the coming year. Thank you for all of your support this past year.