Building a Culture of Mental Health Resilience: What Eating Disorder Care Reveals About the Future of Behavioral Health
Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 3 p.m. ET
Eating disorders represent one of the most complex and costly challenges in behavioral health, intersecting mental health, medical risk and family dynamics while exposing limitations in access and care coordination. During Eating Disorder Awareness Week, NovaOne and Equip will examine how eating disorder care serves as a critical indicator of broader behavioral health system performance. Attendees will gain insight into how integrated, evidence-based specialty care models can strengthen population-level mental health resilience and support a long-term health plan strategy.
Speakers: Kristina Saffran, CEO and Co-Founder, Equip and Janice Rybicki, LPC, Director, Client and Provider Success, NovaOne
Why This Matters
Eating disorder care is a stress test for the behavioral health system, revealing where access-first networks break down under high-acuity, medically complex conditions. These illnesses have one of the highest mortality rates in psychiatry, yet fewer than half of adults receive eating disorder–specific treatment, contributing to an estimated $64.7B annual economic cost in the U.S. With 40% of Americans living in mental health professional shortage areas and average behavioral health wait times of nearly seven weeks, health plans must move beyond access alone to build coordinated, outcomes-driven behavioral health ecosystems.
Sources: Harvard, HRSA, National Eating Disorders Association, NIMH
- Understand why eating disorders expose systemic gaps in traditional behavioral health networks and care models
- Redefine mental health resilience at the health plan level by shifting from individual responsibility to system design and accountability
- Identify key limitations of access-first behavioral health strategies for complex high-acuity conditions
- Evaluate how specialty behavioral health partnerships can improve outcomes engagement and cost management
- Apply lessons from eating disorder care to strengthen broader behavioral health strategy network adequacy and population health initiatives
Speakers
Kristina Saffran is the cofounder and CEO of Equip, the leading provider of virtual, evidence-based eating disorder treatment in the U.S. Founded in 2019, Equip is built upon a combination of clinical expertise and lived experience to transform eating disorder care and make it accessible to all patients and families. Since recovering from anorexia as a teenager, Kristina has been on a mission to ensure that all families have access to high quality treatment. Kristina co-founded and is an active board member of Project HEAL, a Fortune 40 under 40 honoree, an Ashoka Fellow, a Forbes 30 under 30 social entrepreneur, and a Facebook Community Leadership Fellow, and graduated from Harvard College with a bachelors degree in psychology in 2014.
-1.png?width=200&name=Janice%20Rybicki%20(1)-1.png "Janice Rybicki (1)-1")
Janice is a Licensed Professional Counselor who started her clinical career working in community mental health with a primary focus on individuals with serious mental illness. In her role at NovaOne, Janice ensures clinical quality across our provider network while cultivating strong, collaborative relationships with both customers and providers. She leverages her clinical expertise to promote collaboration, strategic alignment, and meaningful outcomes for all stakeholders.
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