Lisa M. Gomez Of The Employee Benefits and Security Administration On How To Support A Loved One…

Lisa M. Gomez Of The Employee Benefits and Security Administration On How To Support A Loved One Who Is Struggling With An Eating Disorder

When a loved one is living with an eating disorder, it can be hard to know what will be helpful and what is not helpful or even harmful; what to say and what not to say. I think one of the most important things is to learn as much as you can about the person’s condition both by educating yourself about the disorder and asking the person directly about their specific feelings and needs. It can be very hard to thread the needle between being an ally and a source of support while respecting their privacy, independence and ability to chart their own path. The more you can learn about how to support your loved one, what to do and not do, and where to turn to when you need support and guidance as a caregiver, the better an experience you will both have.

Eating disorders are complex mental health conditions that affect millions worldwide, transcending age, gender, and cultural boundaries. They are not simply about food but involve a range of psychological, physical, and social issues. Supporting a loved one through this struggle can be challenging, requiring understanding, patience, and knowledge of the right approaches to truly make a difference.

In this series, we aim to shed light on the most effective ways to offer support, understanding, and hope to those battling an eating disorder. We are talking to psychologists, nutritionists, doctors, therapists, and survivors, who can provide valuable perspectives on nurturing recovery, fostering resilience, and promoting healthy relationships with food and body image. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa M. Gomez.

Lisa M. Gomez was appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as the Assistant Secretary of the Employee Benefits Security Administration, an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor that oversees all private employment-based retirement, health and other welfare benefit plans. Previously, she was a partner with the labor, employment and employee benefits law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP in New York City, and spent almost three decades representing various Taft-Hartley and multiemployer pension and welfare plans, single employer plans, jointly administered training program trust funds, a federal employees health benefit (FEHB) plan, supplemental health plans, and VEBAs covering employees in a wide array of industries. Lisa earned her law degree from the Fordham University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Hofstra University.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

I was raised in a working-class family and was the first to attend college. While I wasn’t sure exactly the direction that I wanted to take, I knew I wanted to work to protect others and make a difference. While in law school, I learned about the struggle to protect America’s workers and their hard-earned benefits. I came to understand that my parents did not have most of these basic protections in their jobs. Despite years of hard work, they did not have any form of workplace retirement benefits to provide security in later years and the financial burden of health care without adequate coverage was very real. As I started learning more about labor and employment law protections, I also learned about legal protections related to employee benefits, such as retirement and health benefits. Prior to coming into my current position, I spent almost 30 years representing employee benefit plans, focusing on protecting the benefits of workers and their families, and helping them to understand their benefits. I also worked to counsel the labor organizations and employers who sponsor these plans to understand and appreciate their legal responsibilities to participants and their families. It’s been an honor and a privilege to now bring that experience to my position as Assistant Secretary of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, where I can fully devote myself to protecting the benefits of America’s workers, retirees and their families.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I’d have to say that my favorite “Life Lesson Quote” is one that I have hung on my office wall while I was in private practice and brought with me when I came to the Department of Labor. It says “May you be proud of the work you do, the person you are and the difference you make.” This has been relevant to me because, as I said above, the driving force behind everything I have done has been to try to make a difference, and to always bring my authentic self in doing so. In my current role, I am honored and fortunate to be able to start every single day thinking about what I can do that day to make a difference in the lives of the over 152 million American workers, retirees and their families with respect to their workplace retirement and health benefits. That’s an enormous responsibility, but it is also an incredible privilege to be in a position to be able to make real changes that affect people’s lives at such a large scale.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Many people may not realize that the Department of Labor plays a big role in ensuring that as many Americans as possible can access the health care that they need. Most Americans receive health coverage through their job or a family member’s job. My agency, the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), is part of the Department of Labor, and we have regulatory, enforcement, and outreach responsibilities related to the job-based health plans of more than 150 million Americans.

In 2008, Congress passed a landmark law called the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. The basic principle of the law is that health plans should be required to cover mental health care in a way that is not different than the way that they cover medical or surgical care. Mental health care is health care, plain and simple. Included in mental health care is treatment for eating disorders, so this federal law has broad ability to impact the way that people who are seeking care for such disorders can access it.

Unfortunately, the promise of this law has not lived up to the reality that patients and plan participants have experienced in the years that have followed. For far too many of America’s workers and families, it is still much easier to get care for a condition such as diabetes, or another physical ailment like a broken wrist than it is to get care for an eating disorder or another mental health condition or a substance use disorder. The Department of Labor, through EBSA, is responsible for enforcing this law, and our investigations have shown that a very high percentage of health plans are out of compliance. There are many illegal barriers to coverage that make it difficult or even impossible for individuals and families to access the care they need — care that in some cases can be lifesaving.

To respond to this crisis of compliance, EBSA is doing three things, all of which are aimed at making it easier for people to access care, including care for eating disorders:

The agency has committed unprecedented resources to enforcing the federal mental health parity law and ensuring that health plans who are making it difficult to access care are held accountable for those actions and that those barriers to care are eliminated.
The agency has proposed new regulations that would strengthen the law and make it easier for the Department of Labor to enforce it.
The agency has been engaging in a targeted outreach campaign related to this area of the law to educate the public about what their rights are and make sure people aware of the fact that the Department of Labor can assist them if they have questions about accessing care or if their rights are being violated.

According to this study cited by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, at least 30 million people in the U.S. of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder. Can you suggest 3–5 reasons why this has become such a critical issue recently?

Within EBSA, there is an entire team devoted to outreach, education, and assisting the public in navigating their health and retirement plans. The agency also has over 100 employees who are called Benefit Advisors — these are individuals that are dispersed across the country in EBSA’s regional offices, and they are invaluable resources for individuals who need help understanding their rights under the law, navigating their health plan, or working with their employer or plan administrator to get the most out of their promised benefits. In addition, EBSA has a task force specifically dedicated to enforcement of mental health parity requirements and investigators across the country who work hard to identify and correct violations of these requirements.

These incredibly committed Department of Labor employees can help those dealing with accessing care for eating disorders in a few ways:

If you or a member of your family is having trouble navigating your health plan or experiencing barriers to care, YOU can call an EBSA benefit advisor. They will help you understand your rights. If your rights are being violated, they may be able to assist you in working with your employer or health plan to correct the situation. To reach a benefit advisor, call 1–866–444–3272. EBSA can assist plan participants in a broad range of languages. If the issue can’t be resolved easily, EBSA’s enforcement team is ready to step in as needed to make sure your rights are protected.
If believe you have had a claim for eating disorder care that was wrongfully denied, or that your health plan has exclusions of or restrictions on coverage of eating disorders that are resulting in you losing access to care, an EBSA benefit advisor may be able to work with you to understand what happened and contact your health plan to find out next steps to hopefully resolve the issue.
EBSA can help you to understand what questions you can ask of your employer or health plan administrator so that you can be confident that they are following mental health parity laws. This resource is a good place to start! The agency’s mental health parity webpage has many other resources that also might be helpful, including calling our benefits advisors.

As you know, one of the challenges of an eating disorder is the harmful,and dismissive sentiment of “why can’t you just control yourself”. What do you think needs to be done to make it apparent that an eating disorder is an illness just like heart disease or schizophrenia?

We need to keep reinforcing that there should not be any stigma associated with mental health conditions and substance use disorders by normalizing the conversations about these conditions. It should be no different to talk about living with an eating disorder than it is talking about living with hypertension. It should be no different to take a day off if you don’t feel well mentally than if you don’t feel well physically. It should be no different to seek physical therapy when your body is hurting than to seek behavioral therapy when your mind is hurting. Treatments such as nutritional counseling should be available for people with eating disorders in the same way it is available for people with diabetes or cancer. The more we can bring these barriers and restrictions out of the darkness and into the light, and move away from stigma and blame and towards education and compassion, the more people can realize that there is really no reason to be looking at eating disorders any differently than any other condition or disorder.

We need to continue to provide outreach and awareness about resources that are available to people living with mental health conditions. With respect to coverage for care, if someone is facing especially high hurdles just to get needed mental health or substance use disorder benefits, they should call an EBSA benefits advisor at 866–444–3272 or make an online request for assistance at askebsa.dol.gov. EBSA’s benefits advisors can help them understand their rights to mental health care, the benefits available to them under the plan and can provide assistance in working with their health plan or insurer.

Here is the main question of our interview. Can you please share with our readers 5 ways to support a loved one who is struggling with an eating disorder? If you can, can you share an example from your own experience?

Learn more about eating disorders and helpful resources.
Learn about warning signs and how to help someone you think may be in trouble.
Show compassion and support and listen without judgment.
Remove stigmas and shame around mental health and eating disorders.
Encourage the person to seek treatment and ask them how you can help.

How do you navigate the balance between offering support and respecting the autonomy of a loved one with an eating disorder?

When a loved one is living with an eating disorder, it can be hard to know what will be helpful and what is not helpful or even harmful; what to say and what not to say. I think one of the most important things is to learn as much as you can about the person’s condition both by educating yourself about the disorder and asking the person directly about their specific feelings and needs. It can be very hard to thread the needle between being an ally and a source of support while respecting their privacy, independence and ability to chart their own path. The more you can learn about how to support your loved one, what to do and not do, and where to turn to when you need support and guidance as a caregiver, the better an experience you will both have.

Is there a message you would like to tell someone who may be reading this, who is currently struggling with an eating disorder?

EBSA is here for you. It is hard enough to come to terms with any health condition, and once you do that it shouldn’t be an additional struggle to get care. We at EBSA want to support you in the best way we can by answering your questions about how to access treatment and care, your rights to coverage, and how to work with your health plan to understand what your benefits are and how to get coverage to help you on this journey. Call an EBSA benefits advisor today at 866–444–3272 or make an online request for assistance at askebsa.dol.gov.

In your experience, what are the most effective strategies for building resilience and a positive self-image in individuals recovering from an eating disorder?

While it is important to learn how you can be most supportive of someone living with an eating disorder, it is also critically important to remember that they are not their eating disorder. There is so much more to them than the condition they are living with. Remind them that they are brave and resilient and tell them that you believe in them and will always be there for them. Acknowledge their struggle and that there will be good days and bad days but that there are so many people who value them and love them. Give them compliments on the wonderful and amazing person that they are — there are so many great things that you can say as a person that have nothing to do with their appearance or weight — their talents, creativity, treatment of others, humor, initiative, professional and personal achievements, etc. Let them know that you are there to support them in whatever way they need.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the largest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

How can our readers continue to follow your work online?

We are continuing to work on our outreach and education efforts with respect to mental health parity, and you can follow our work by checking out our resources at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/laws-and-regulations/laws/mental-health-and-substance-use-disorder-parity and by going to https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa to subscribe for EBSA email updates.

Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!

Lisa M. Gomez Of The Employee Benefits and Security Administration On How To Support A Loved One… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.