Memphis and the Mid-South are set to lose the only inpatient treatment facility dedicated to eating disorders as Fairhaven Treatment Center prepares to close its doors. Employees of the facility were informed of the parent company’s decision to close the facility in a virtual meeting earlier this year.
Employees at Fairhaven, which opened in 2014, were told the facility is expected to close its doors on March 8.
Within the Memphis metro area, other mental health facilities will treat and see patients with eating disorders; but, Fairhaven is the only facility with programming exclusively tailored for treating eating disorders.
Eating disorders remain one of the deadliest mental health disorders in the U.S., with an estimated one person succumbing to the health complications of disordered eating every 52 minutes, according to the Eating Disorder Coalition, an advocacy organization that works with elected federal officials to increase funding and research for the diseases.
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Access to treatment for eating disorders is strained. The National Eating Disorders Collaboration states complicating factors like stigma around diagnoses and treatment and a lack of knowledge among healthcare professionals are two reasons of many making treatment hard to secure.
A lack of availability of affordable inpatient treatment facilities is likely to widen the access gap for care in the Mid-South, where higher rates of poverty are already prohibitive to inpatient treatment access for mental health disorders.
Fairhaven is owned by Refresh Mental Health, a company that owns treatment centers for various addictions and co-concurring mental health disorders across the U.S. Refresh was purchased by Optum in 2022. Optum is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.
Optum is the single-largest employer of physicians in the U.S.; mergers with the subsidiary have attracted closer looks from the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division. Optum’s third-quarter revenue grew from $18 billion in 2022 to $23.9 billion in 2023.
Representatives from both Refresh and Fairhaven did not return inquiries from The Commercial Appeal.
Micaela Watts is a reporter for The Commercial Appeal covering issues tied to hospitals, healthcare, and resource access. She can be reached at micaela.watts@commercialappeal.com.
