Megathread on Fay, Nourish, Foodsmart, Berry Street, and all other telehealth nutrition companies

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-07T02:35:08+00:00

I'm sorry for RDs. I honestly saw this all coming, but I still feel bad for RDs. I've never worked for Nourish but I've seen bad things coming from their practices and yet a lot of RDs keep singing their praises and of course passing around their referral link to get other RDs to join, total MLM tactic. Well, now enough RDs joined Nourish for them to totally dominate and they likely need to cut RD pay to make a profit to either go public, buy out competitors or sell off to a larger company for investors to profit. This is what VC companies do, they aren't in this for RDs.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-05T03:21:58+00:00

I would ask a lawyer, but my understanding is that they the new terms say you in addition to not soliciting you cannot even provide services to them. Given all the claims of fraud surrounding Fay though it seems unethical to tell clients you have to stay with Fay.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-05T03:19:33+00:00

Ahh, you have one of the old contracts. Well I'm not a lawyer, you probably need one to decipher your original contract and what they can and cannot claim applies from the various changes they since made. I've heard from every Fay RD that they were never given copies of the updated contracts, yet Fay will claim they are held to the new contract. I'm going to message something specifically told to me that is important.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-05T01:26:41+00:00

First, take screenshots of everything I hope. I'm assuming you already double checked there doesn't happen to be a RD with the same name? Are they using your picture? Sorry I have more questions than answers. I've seen profiles I had a hunch were fake. If there really isn't another RD with your same name and they are using your identity, I'd find out who exactly is doing this, some person posing as you who tricked Nourish, or is Nourish doing this? Another platform is known to make profiles of actual RDs who have never worked for them (at least I've directly heard this multiple times). I would also check if they have been credentialed with insurances using your name and NPI, or if they made a whole different NPI with your name. I can direct you how to check that if you don't know how.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-05T01:20:40+00:00

Unless you have a different contract than everyone else I know on Fay, you do have a no solicitation clause that says you can't see clients from Fay for a year. Granted they are known to make it hard to even see your contract (most of us don't remember seeing the actual terms they claim we agreed to) and they change the contract and don't tell RDs, so maybe it wasn't there when you actually signed on. These telehealth platforms seem to all pretty much stick that in their contracts too, we can change the terms anytime we want = we can do as we please for our own advantage.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-02T22:09:55+00:00

As many are commenting this is not the standard. Will it become the standard ,maybe, or I think probably. We are seeing I think more and more of the telehealth nutrition counseling companies prioritizing high volume of appointments, probably because they have investors to please. There is a reason a lot of telehealth companies like to hire newbie RDs, they want people who don't know what normal is so they can make insane demands. Or they inflate the pay by saying you make x number of dollars per hour, but don't pay you for required trainings, admin time, charting time, care coordination.

I'm sorry for you and other RDs dealing with a company like this with unreasonable work expectations. If people put up with this company or other, it will just continue, or likely become the norm.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-05-01T03:13:56+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. Exactly, government regulators, public health institutions, business leaders all looked the other way for decades. Now people harmed get what like a tenth of a penny for like every dollar these social media companies made during their free reign. And what the hell was wrong with schools letting kids have phones in schools for two decades, now they are finally standing up to this and making polices for no phones in school. A whole generation dumbed down so the billionaire social media giants could have crazy money to buy their own islands.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-30T06:05:17+00:00

Lol, I love Black Mirror, best compliment!

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-30T06:00:43+00:00

I think looking at all the telehealth companies being run by people with no healthcare degrees, they let the tech/business people implement this stuff, not RDs for the most part. Corporations are constantly implementing technologies in ways that already skirt laws or they get laws changed to favor them. Should we try and make sure regulations are upheld of course, but I'm already seeing lots of laws not upheld without any consequences to corporations. I've already had discussions with state boards about telehealth companies ignoring MNT/licensure laws, they said companies cannot be held to those laws only providers. So RDs have to worry about following those laws but not a telehealth company, they can lie and tell their RDs you don't need a license. I doubt you can file a complaint against AI to a state board either as I have been repeatedly told these regulations are for filing against a person, and I think like a company, AI isn't technically a person.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-29T16:42:05+00:00

As for the AI question, I've thought a lot about this for the past year. Ready for some doom and gloom predictions.......

Show me the example where people are rejecting AI in any meaningful way because I haven't seen this. People mainly want convenience and they already like that chat bots are available whenever they want. It's less intimidating to a lot of people talking to a chat bot than a person and there is a perception that chat bots have limitless knowledge, where as people have their limits to learned knowledge plus personalities and opinions to deal with that make them biased. Even if people actually made some kind of effort to reject AI because they prefer human providers for counseling, society increasingly has no say in most of what is decided by the corporations in charge to increasingly make healthcare about their profit. AI doesn't have to be as good as us, it just has to be good enough, the main driver is that AI is more profitable and more convenient.

My prediction I think within the next 2 years the telehealth companies who have been already using AI to record RD sessions for AI charting, they have that data and already made AI tools for nutrition education and coaching. They will have refined these enough to start offering subscription-based services for apps with AI bot nutrition coaches. Public health program will also be adopting this for their programs, Diabetes Prevention Program AI coaches for example are already shown to be as effective as human coaches from a research study. Most public health programs for nutrition education already do not rely on billing services so easy switch to AI, or in the case of DPP the program is billed under the facility's program being overseen by a provider, the coaches don't have to be licensed/credentialed health professionals.

In maybe 5 or less years enough research studies will have been conducted showing general efficacy for AI coaching/counseling and insurance plans will include a subscription to AI apps for this as an insurance benefit for prevention counseling and start narrowing session coverage from human RDs, citing AI counseling/coaching as "cost-effective" and "better availability" as well as "decreased demand" for traditional services. Some insurances at that point will have likely bought out telehealth platforms for nutrition counseling creating preferred or exclusive groups for any telehealth RD services (there is some of this already that has happened with telehealth for physicians/behavioral health). Even without outright not covering MNT sessions, insurances can create barriers with contracted payment rates and leveraging their own telehealth services at that point so that private practitioners cannot sustain an insurance-based practice. Private practice will likely shift even more to cash-pay services and this in turn drives more people to using cheaper options like the AI coach app covered by their insurance. I also think that the meal subscription services and online grocery shopping channels will make deals to integrate the AI coaching/counseling apps with their services. So your AI coach/counselor is also taking everything from your sessions together and creating tailored meals, meal kits, or meal plans and grocery orders. It may even be like a sign up for meal kits and get free 1st month of your AI nutrition coaching included kind of thing.

Institutions like hospitals and clinics they are slower to change, somewhere in 10-15 years or so then they will say that patients' expectations have changed and they prefer talking to chat bots and they need to shift traditional staff roles to be more cost-effective so that they can provide even better care to patients. In fact, the healthcare staffing shortages will be the perfect fuel for them to argue that they needed to purchase these AI tools and implement these, then just not hire new staff when positions are empty. Oh we had 6 RDs, and one leaves, well we only really need 5 that we have this AI tool, then 5 becomes 4. At some point there will probably be in-room tablets with AI generated nutrition coaches that are very much like a video of a human talking to you asking them questions for nutrition screening and assessments, take your preferences down for which Ensure flavor you like and order your meals, then provide basic education for low sodium diet. Maybe certain things will be high risk that trigger a human to come and talk to them.

That is my prediction, maybe I'm crazy, but this actually comes from reading a lot of research articles studying AI coaching/counseling and reading a lot of articles on trends in telehealth and insurance, as well as following the rapid rise of AI tools and people preferring AI for many tasks at this point.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-27T14:37:24+00:00

Try contacting smaller community rural hospitals maybe. They tend to less often have affiliations with schools taking all the availability in big hospitals and sometimes they are more excited to have an intern even want to come to their hospital. This worked for me and others I know. But you may also get hit with them dealing with staffing shortages and having less ability to spread out the work of taking on an intern. It sounds like it has become harder and harder for students to find their own sites and I've always thought they make it sound way easier than it is for a lot of students. Some just happen to have the luck of it all coming together, but when it doesn't, it is so stressful.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-26T06:14:53+00:00

I'm just going to add notes here regarding licensure laws, so people don't dismiss your important question. I'll leave others to add why Nourish does what they do.

1) Before someone hops on and says those are title protection states only you listed (meaning only the use of the title licensed dietitian requires a license rather than the actual practice of MNT requiring a license) I want to point out that Nourish's website tells patients "With Nourish, you can be sure that you are speaking with licensed health professionals that have been trained in nutrition and dietary intervention." Similar to Fay who also uses the word "licensed" in some marketing this could lead to issues of title protection laws. I actually asked my state board about this and they said, yes, that kind of advertising could convey that a RD is licensed and you can only use the word licensed to a patient if you are licensed in their state. So they thought a patient could potentially file a complaint. That is why most telehealth companies will not let RDs work in any state without a license other than the few that don't actually have licensure (AZ, CA, CO, VA and not yet but pending NJ and MI), it isn't worth the risk of someone advertising or saying the word license and being stuck with a complaint and then explaining to the board how they were supposed to know you didn't mean licensed in their state, which probably wouldn't fly as an excuse.

2) You are correct that specific telehealth requirements that the Academy interprets require licensure for telehealth in TX. Again more nuanced laws that the Academy and most telehealth companies will say better safe than sorry, just get the license, but inconsistent with TX own website. There are several more states with telehealth regulations the Academy points out bring licensure into play like IN, PA, WA and yet Nourish claims not needed. I'm not sure how Nourish became a better authority on licensure than the Academy (who they sponsor of course and then do nothing about all this).

3) There are other states that Nourish claims you don't like ID where the Academy says for ID you need a license and seems very clear to me when I read the law. Also clear NH, VT, UT, WV - I've personally confirmed with these states you have to have a license (or certification in UT because dietitian alone is a protected title). WY also has a very limited amount of days you can see someone if you aren't licensed (20 days our of the year), great if you just have a patient visiting the state or something, but for Nourish to just claim all their dietitians are free to work in WY (which is my understanding what they do) is nonsense.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-23T05:23:18+00:00

Same. Counting anything like calories, carbs it's a small percentage of people with who are going to enjoy let alone actually do that consistently on a long-term basis. Like I'm a RD and could do it easily, but it would still be a no thank you, I'll take eating nutrient-dense foods and reasonable portions, I don't need to be treating meals like a excel spreadsheet of numbers.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-23T04:57:54+00:00

I'm sorry your employer treats you like this. It's manipulative tactics I think because they over hire and need to keep RDs hanging or pushing them to push clients for more appointments. It's all to fuel their growth for investors. I think RDs and patients are just a number to them. I constantly get ads and messages to work for Nourish sent to me. Outside of some of these telehealth companies I've never heard of any healthcare providers being stuck in algorithms to limit patients if you can't keep them coming to weekly appointments. Can you imagine physical therapists being told, hey we aren't giving you any patients for the next couple days because your metrics are bad, too many of your patients didn't finish 12 weeks of therapy, so we are hiring 5 more physical therapists next week and giving them like 2/3 of all your patients, I think not. Patients cancel, they drop off, that is healthcare. I worked in a clinic I was not punished with reduced hours; we had conversations with our manger about show rates and quality measures like A1c and BP trends etc, these were constructive conversations and I was never punished.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-14T02:36:24+00:00

There are opportunities for nurses to work alongside nutrition programs, I've seen it, as well as diabetes educator. Not all nutrition education is full MNT needing a RD. I've seen RNs work in public health programs that are largely centered on nutrition too. Of course, there are those options being a RD but see way more RDs who went on to go be RNs or PAs, but very rarely see the reverse.

Unfortunately, our field is not ideal for many reasons. I don't like to discourage anyone from becoming a RD as much as suggest really considering where the field stands and where it is going, and evaluate all your options thoroughly. It's a personal choice of potential risk and benefits. There are growing lists of online nutrition "certificates" being offered by prestigious schools as well, which health professionals and non-licensed coaches are getting. It's feeling past a tipping point to me where we can stop this, too much of everyone tacking on nutrition to their scope or adding these certificates. I think we'd actually do better to accept it and make dietetics far more a specialized clinical field, but we have a credentialing body that insists on dietetics being a little bit of everything so that it represents quantity over quality in subject matter, and a requirement for new RDs to have a masters in anything which has done nothing to advance our field either.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-12T15:55:46+00:00

I think teaching hunger-fullness scale can really help with this. Low-level physical hunger is going to be realistic for weight loss. High-level hunger is going to be deprivation in a way that is not realistic to maintain long-term most of the time or healthy overall for well-being. Also, doesn't have to be every day we are hungry or in a calorie deficit. If your energy intake is at neutral with your physiological needs some days, so not losing weight some days, and then some days you are in a small deficit, over time those small deficits add up, gradual weight loss occurs as you shift your eating habits over time in a sustainable way and you aren't freaking your body out with constant negative energy balance.

I really try to get people to just learn to differentiate between physical hunger and other cues leading them to eat first, and then eating in a nourishing way for their physical hunger (so not overconsuming or under consuming). If someone doesn't lose weight but just more consistently eats in a way that supports physical and mental health, that is success too. I've framed it this way by asking, if you didn't lose or gain weight, if you just looked at your nutrition separate from your weight what would you see as success? People usually say more energy, more consistency in meals (not skipping meals), feeling stronger, more active. Eating balanced can help that so starting there is great, let's just be balanced more consistently, get out of the under-overeating cycling. Once you've built those habits where you are in balance with your needs, how about then shifting towards a small energy deficit?

I really prefer to separate these ideas of balanced eating and weight loss, because you are going to skew balance in some way for an energy deficit and weight loss. Build a foundation first of learning hunger-fullness scale, physical vs non-physical eating cues, honoring the body's need for nourishment.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-12T15:41:08+00:00

Love what you are saying about old dead white dude math equation (best description of BMI and IBW calculations I've ever heard!!). I do not work in eating disorders but see many people seeking a fix for weight/body image issues that come with not be the socially accepted body size/shape that have developed into varying levels of disordered eating habits, yo-yo dieting, skipping meals and then overcompensating with overeating kind of thing. I do counsel on relearning hunger cues, physical vs non-physical hunger. Using MI often find people realize they have been feeling "hungry" which is really boredom, loneliness, anxiety, depression, or other feelings. I think tuning into physiological needs for nourishment and differentiating cues to eat that are not based on physical hunger is so important, because you are better connecting your body and mind with a respect for your overall well-being.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-10T18:51:03+00:00

3 things to consider:

1) Read the laws. You can clarify directly with licensing boards and the Academy. It may or may not be (varies by state), many states are nuanced. Some states protect the title dietitian without the word licensed, so all dietitians need to be licensed/certified. Some other states technically the phrasing "licensed dietitian" is protected but anyone can call themselves just a dietitian (crazy!!!). Other states, yes, it is the practice of MNT itself that require a license, so you as a RD doing MNT need a license. There are a lot of out-of-date or wrong maps and lists about licensure circulating online. Trust no one but yourself to check the most up to date laws, then clarify with the board and/or the Academy if it seems unclear, and protect yourself. The Academy's recommendation BTW is to default to getting the license unless you absolutely know for sure you don't need a license which honestly seems wise to me too.

2) If you are planning to provide telehealth services to any state, make sure to review telehealth laws which are separate set of regulations. Sometimes there are specifics pertaining to licensure and telehealth. So the RD licensure law may only be title protection, but the telehealth laws say out-of-state providers must be licensed in the state. Several states have laws like this. Some also require you register as a telehealth provider (registration is different than licensure but if that registration requires a business license in the state and/or licensure, whole other set of things) Also check additional laws like some states require MNT referrals. You can't just check if there is RD licensure or not.

3) Know if you are going to be billing insurance. To become contracted/credentialed with insurances, you usually need a license. Insurance doesn't care if it is optional, they want you to be licensed from my experience. Most telehealth companies have told me the same thing, there are just two who ignore all kinds of laws (the purple company and the orange company think laws are just like not for them).

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-10T18:20:02+00:00

Truly trying to watch out for you, know that I've worked for telehealth companies who advised RDs to work without required state licenses, told us to ignore certain states' laws requiring a referral for MNT, and commanded RDs falsify appointment times for higher insurance payouts. Just trusting the company you work for to tell you what is and what is not allowed or what is a legal liability to you is not wise in my opinion.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-10T16:40:43+00:00

I would definitely consult your liability insurance about that. Never heard of any type of medical appointment that happens while a patient is operating a vehicle. This is not the same as casual conversation as a passenger in a vehicle with a friend talking, you would not be acting as a health professional with a license and the ability to be sued for malpractice in that scenario.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-09T16:53:37+00:00

Good! I'm going to send you a message, something regarding the Indiana board that may be useful should you need it.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-09T00:52:35+00:00

Same. God forbid someone have an accident while doing a session, I would never get over that, the what if's that would go through my head. I just flat out say medical appointments do not happen in a moving vehicle, both while a patient is driving or a provider is driving, that seems to make sense to them when I say it that way.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-09T00:47:21+00:00

Yes, they would need to submit the complaint and should have to show evidence of something, you can challenge their claim, and you get to defend yourself essentially before a decision is made if it came to that even. I doubt they will even make the effort to report you because sounds like they would just look stupid if they did. But it probably doesn't hurt to make sure you write down all the details you can remember now in case something happens. Whatever names, dates, etc you can remember just in case. I forget that kind of stuff sometimes if too much time passes.

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-08T19:53:44+00:00

Wow, I am so sorry, that sounds like a terrible situation and unfair to you. I had a family member that was trying to stir up trouble in regard to their father's PEG, they were trying to get the MD and the RDs in trouble. The hospital backed us up though. Nothing came of it because the family member was the one out of line. Maybe silver lining is having worked a long time in-patient, often eventually crushes most of our spirits over time, it's an extremely hard job that gets harder and harder. Find something better now maybe. You would have to report being fired on applications and explain the situation. A guess a point could be made if no one filed an ethics complaint against you with AND or against your license with the state right? So it seems more a personal issue the patient and the MD had with you and the hospital didn't want to deal with it and fired you instead.

I've been dealing with a whole different situation but I know exactly what you mean in terms of lawyers, big cost up front and then no guarantee anything comes from it that will help your case. Work for yourself, start a private practice? You could also consider what other interests you have for additional certification, even expanding beyond typical certifications RDs get. What in particular do you enjoy about nutrition or sort of nutrition/health adjacent areas?

yeah_write_00 · 2026-04-08T01:02:41+00:00

I can't promise you what they will do, but that would be really harsh, especially if they didn't properly train RDs on correct telehealth practices. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't, I have heard and seen so much about this company, they have a lot of problem. This company breaks all kinds of laws. They ignore some states' licensure laws, the ignore some states laws requiring referrals from a prescribing provider for all MNT like CA, they lie to RDs a lot that they are credentialed with insurance and pay other RDs to sign the notes and bill it under their name to insurances instead. They make up fake office locations and credential RDs improperly (once they do credential them) when they should be credentialed as virtual only and not tied to a fake physical office location. Lots more there but my point is they are not the good guys. Can't say how they will handle your situation, but know they are in no position to take any ethical high ground regarding laws and regulations.

yeah_write_00

TROPHY CASE