From Crisis to Care: Our founding story
The personal story behind our commitment to fixing psychiatric care
"Dad, I don't know what to do."
My daughter's voice cracked as she called home from college, and my heart sank. She was seeing a therapist, but her depression was flaring. She needed to restart her medication. In spite of her therapist’s help, she couldn't find a psychiatrist with availability. As a physician, I knew what she needed. As her dad, I felt completely helpless.
What followed was days of calls, leveraging the connections I had in healthcare. Even with my medical background and network, the barriers were overwhelming. Four weeks of waiting was the best we could find. Four weeks during which my daughter's depression could deepen, threatening her ability to stay in school, and jeopardizing the semester she'd worked so hard for.
“The more we talked with people about it, the more we learned just how widespread the problem was. I heard story after story of people trapped in the same frustrating cycle. ”
It wasn‘t the first time I’d seen people struggle to get psychiatric care. Even people close to me. But that particular experience shook me. "If it's this hard for me, with all my medical knowledge and connections, what happens to everyone else?"
Erik Vanderlip (who is now Care Nimble’s Chief Medical Officer) and I were already meeting up over coffee regularly, and we started talking more and more about how we might be able to make this particular problem better. And the more we talked with people about it, the more we learned just how widespread the problem was. I heard story after story of people trapped in the same frustrating cycle.
Friends, family members, colleagues. They knew they needed help, but couldn't access it. Struggles with careers, school, family and social interactions. Trips to the emergency room. Weeks or even months not being able to get out of bed. And we heard similar problems from therapists. Painful referral processes, long waits for care, little or no follow-up between visits, and no communication between psychiatrists and therapists.
It was also clear that most mental health companies were just changing the location that people could get care from, while moving around the limited capacity that was already there. And the mismatch between supply and demand was too big to solve by just adding more providers to the current system. We needed to fundamentally rethink how psychiatric care is delivered.
“We needed to fundamentally rethink how psychiatric care is delivered.”
Erik’s unique ability to put structure and design thinking behind the process of psychiatric care started to combine with my past experiences at Bright.md, where we had transformed urgent care through technology. Out of that combination, we saw the beginnings of an exciting new idea about how we could reshape psychiatric care - another essential service trapped in outdated delivery models.
So we started talking with Andrew (who is now Care Nimble’s Chief Technology Officer). He brought a remarkable ability to engineer solutions that make the complexity of care delivery more simple, delightful, and efficient for providers and patients. Together, the three of us began sketching what would become Care Nimble. Not just another psychiatric service, but an entirely new way to get people psychiatric care, built around what people actually need when they're struggling.
A New Model of Care
Our vision was simple but transformative - to provide everything the current system doesn't:
Same day access to psychiatric experts, when you need them
No more scheduling gymnastics or months-long waiting lists
Continuous support between visits
True partnership with therapists
Transparent, affordable pricing that makes sense
When we launched our beta product, we braced ourselves for lots of feedback about incremental improvements. But instead, we were genuinely surprised by the overwhelming support and relief.
People weren't just telling us that Care Nimble worked - they were telling us it was transforming their experience of psychiatric care. Therapists were excited to finally have a collaborative psychiatric partner. Health plans were excited to affordably improve access for their members. And patients? Their responses moved us the most.
“People weren’t just telling us that Care Nimble worked - they were telling us it was transforming their experience of psychiatric care. ”
Instead of the usual rushed visits, ending in a prescription and a “see you in three months,” people were celebrating our detailed care plans that offered real guidance and options. “You asked me questions about my symptoms that I've never been asked before,” we heard from more than one person. They felt heard. Understood. Empowered.
One story particularly stays with me. Someone told us Care Nimble was "kind of a lifesaver." They had run out of their prescription and, in the past, the difficulty of getting care meant they usually ended up in the emergency room. But with Care Nimble, they got the help they needed immediately - breaking a cycle that had repeated itself far too many times.
These aren't just testimonials to us. They're validation of what we believed from the start: psychiatric care can be better. When people tell us they're ready to switch from their current psychiatrist immediately, or that this is the best psychiatric care they've ever received, it’s not just a sign that the old way isn't the only way, but also that we’ve created something truly better.
Building the Future of Mental Healthcare
We're just getting started, but every day brings new stories of people finally getting the care they deserve. For health plans, this means reduced costs and better outcomes. For therapists, it means true clinical partnerships. For patients, it means life-changing access to care. Every time someone tells us "this is how psychiatric care should work," it fuels our commitment to make this level of care available to everyone.
