Brightline opens its first in-person mental health clinic in NY for kids, with several more planned

Brightline, a pediatric mental health provider, has opened its first in-person clinic in Brooklyn, New York. 

Since 2019, Brightline has been providing virtual mental health services in five states. While it was always the company’s plan to be hybrid, executives said, COVID-19 had put that plan on hold until now. Brightline plans to open two additional clinics in the New York area later this year. Eight more clinics are scheduled for 2026, with exact regions to be determined. 

“We’ve seen a real market demand to return to in-person care for children,” Brightline co-founder and CEO Naomi Allen told Fierce Healthcare. 

The clinic has therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists on staff. It offers programs to test, diagnose and treat higher-acuity concerns for anxiety, OCD, ADHD and behavior disorders, in addition to therapy, psychiatry and medication management. Brightline’s intake involves a comprehensive evaluation by a psychologist as well as a psychiatric evaluation if needed. Care teams coordinate closely with the child’s pediatrician. 

Speaking about the importance of psychological testing for conditions like autism, Allen explained, “So often, families don’t know what’s going on with their child. They know that they’re seeing a set of behaviors or symptoms that they can’t interpret.” Early diagnosis is a key intervention, but is often unavailable due to long waitlists and reimbursement challenges.

“It’s a huge unlock in terms of families getting access to resources,” Allen said of the clinic’s offerings. While families can generally choose between virtual or in-person care, psychological testing will be done at the clinic. The clinic also prefers to see patients who are being prescribed stimulants for ADHD in person.

When it comes to preventing wait-time bottlenecks, Brightline leans on measurement-based care. “We have a number of different kinds of systems for how we can monitor demand and scale our capacity,” Allen said. All patients go through measurement-based care no less than monthly, with exact frequency depending on the pathway. 

By concretely tracking clinical progress, Brightline can help patients graduate within 12 to 16 weeks, freeing up providers for new patients. “We know using measurement and tracking clinical outcomes week over week with the family gives that family confidence,” Allen noted. 

While measuring progress with patient-reported outcomes questionnaires is important, doing so alone is not enough for meaningful change. Families also need to set treatment goals, unique to them and their children. “That’s what keeps families staying in the program and adhering to the dose of how frequently they show up for sessions, etc.,” Allen said. 

Whether the child or the parent fills out questionnaires like the GAD7 or PHQ9 depends on the age of the child and the type of questionnaire. Some questionnaires, like the PSC17, are intended to be completed by a parent on behalf of their child. Brightline also measures other things such as caregiver stress. “Depending on what the family presents with, then we have a very tailored approach to measurement-based care that’s specific to the symptoms the child has,” Allen said.

Brightline is also building a tool to help parents view data visualizations of their children’s progress, based on those measures. It already offers an online platform and mobile app with additional resources. 

The company also invests in understanding the broader influences on a child’s mental health. “It’s not enough to treat the child, it’s not even enough to track the outcomes. You have to really look at that child in the context of their family and their community,” Allen said. For example, for parents with children under age 6, the first intervention is typically parent management training. This involves teaching parents strategies for handling behavior problems and improving the quality of the parent-child relationship.

In addition to its virtual and now in-person mental health services, Brightline has a special California program funded by the California Department of Health Care Services. BrightLife Kids offers free behavioral health tools and coaching to families with kids under 13. The program serves families regardless of income, insurance or immigration status. 

Coaching is typically for families without an underlying clinical need for therapy and uses motivational interviewing and behavior change techniques to help patients manage their symptoms. The program typically sees outcomes in four to six sessions, per Allen, and is not meant to be a replacement for therapy.  

“The goal is for this to be short-term behavioral skill building,” Allen said. Families participating also have access to Brightline’s platform and app with resources like meditation guides and a special program designed for new parents.

This year, BrightLife Kids is expected to serve 150,000 families. The program has users in every single California county and most identify as BIPOC. More than half of participants live in underserved communities with limited access to healthcare services. For more than three-quarters of users, it’s their first experience accessing mental health services.

A third (PDF) of youth in California don’t have reliable access to mental health resources, though early interventions are key to preventing downstream issues in adulthood. To support youth mental health, California has launched a number of programs in recent years, including BrightLife Kids. Another, the Student Behavioral Health Incentive Program, offers incentive payments to Medi-Cal managed care plans to build capacity for behavioral health services in K-12 schools. 

Brightline virtual and in-person services are covered by Cigna, Aetna and some Blues plans. The company is also working on securing contracts with Optum and Carelon. It does not yet take Medicaid but is exploring doing so.

Brightline is backed by investors like Boston Children’s Hospital, Northwell Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Google Ventures, KKR and Oak HC/FT. The company is exploring health system partnerships but is not yet ready to announce, Allen said. Last year, Brightline partnered with Teladoc Health to extend virtual mental health care services for children, adolescents and their families.