The Dietitian Was There. The Insurance Card Was the Problem.

There are two ways to make a dietitian appointment expensive. One is to charge a lot. The other is to make it so awkward to use insurance that the dietitian cannot afford to take it. Fay Nutrition was born in the second problem. Sammy Faycurry watched his mother Rita and sister Suzanna, both registered dietitians, contend with the machinery around care. He and co-founder Mark Stefanski built a platform for them. It became a company for thousands of other clinicians.

Fay's proposition sounds like a simple match: a person wants help eating differently, a qualified professional wants to help. But American health care is full of promising matches buried beneath paperwork. A clinician must be credentialed with a health plan. Someone must check eligibility, explain the likely copay, document the visit, submit a claim, collect payment and answer when the numbers do not agree. The meal plan is the easy part to picture. The claim is the part that decides whether a practice can stay open.

Two dietitians at the kitchen table

Faycurry started working on the idea while at Harvard Business School in 2021 and initially bootstrapped it. Stefanski joined about a year later as the technical co-founder. The company dates its founding to 2022. Its first audience was remarkably specific: Faycurry's mother and sister. The general lesson is useful precisely because the starting point was so narrow. They could see what a real dietitian did all day, including the tasks that did not appear on an invoice.

By May 2024, when Fay announced a $20 million Series A led by Forerunner Ventures, it said more than 1,000 registered dietitians were on the platform. A previously unannounced seed round led by General Catalyst brought the total raised at that point to $25 million. The company described its offer to providers as a business in a box. That phrase is a little too tidy for the mess it addresses, but the list is concrete: insurance credentialing, a booking system, charting, billing, patient referrals and payouts.

The provider relationship matters. Fay says its participating dietitians are independent practice owners, not employees. There is no minimum-hours requirement and no non-compete, according to its provider page. Joining is free, although the company does not publish a simple universal fee schedule for the economics of every visit. Fay earns its place by making independent practice more feasible; the dietitian still has to be worth seeing.

“For too long, access to diet and nutrition care has been gate-kept by prohibitively high costs and inability to access RDs who accept insurance.”Sammy Faycurry, Fay's 2024 launch announcement

The price on the card is only a promise

For patients, Fay's front door is a searchable directory. A person can filter by concern - diabetes, gut health, eating disorders, kidney disease, weight management or dozens of other specialties - and by insurance and location. Sessions may be virtual or in person. In the mobile app, members can message their dietitian and keep a meal journal between appointments. Referring clinicians can receive progress summaries. This is medical nutrition therapy delivered by credentialed professionals, rather than a bundle of generic meal plans.

The advertised price can be as low as $0 a session. Fay's own pricing explanation is more interesting than the billboard version: it checks eligibility and available cost-sharing information before booking, then generates an estimate. A deductible, copay, visit limit or the insurer's final decision can change the bill. Fay says roughly 95% of insured users have historically paid $0, while its estimate tool and guarantee aim to soften the uncertainty. Without insurance, Fay says an appointment could be around $150. A patient should check the actual plan; a dollar sign in a headline is not an insurance contract.

That provider growth is the key operating metric. More clinicians mean more specialties, appointments and geographic coverage. More covered patients mean a stronger reason for clinicians to join. It is the familiar marketplace loop, except one side must be clinically qualified and the other side's ability to pay may depend on an insurer's database.

A three-sided table with a fourth chair

Fay serves patients, dietitians and payers. Employers and referring doctors form a fourth channel. The company has named relationships with large insurers including UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Optum and Humana. Those names describe reach across plans, not a guarantee that every member's visit will be covered. Its business model runs through care utilization and claims: Collective Health, which lists Fay in its benefits marketplace, describes the pricing model as utilization via claims.

Distribution has become a second product. In September 2025 Fay joined Amazon's Health Benefits Connector, allowing shoppers to discover its service and check whether they have nutrition coverage. Fay said then that its network had passed 3,500 dietitians. Withings has integrated dietitian coaching into a connected-device program for eligible U.S. users. New York Sports Club began pointing members toward dietitians for performance and recovery. The pattern is clear: put the covered appointment beside a moment when a person is already thinking about food, fitness or a health number.

Fay also sells software help to the clinician. Its provider page now lists an AI scribe for notes, a research assistant, organized lab summaries, pre-visit recaps and suggested patient messages. That is a plausible use of AI because paperwork consumes time the dietitian could spend listening. The clinical relationship is still human; the software's job is to clear a path to it.

The small trick beneath a large valuation

A February 2025 Series B led by Goldman Sachs added $50 million at a company-reported $500 million valuation. General Catalyst and Forerunner also participated. The number attracts attention, but it is not proof of clinical outcomes or a published profit figure. In January 2026 Fay announced Kristin Myers as its new chief executive, placing an experienced health care operator over the next stage of the platform. Faycurry and Stefanski remain the founders in the company's story; the leadership title changed.

Fay competes most directly with other insurance-based dietitian networks, including Nourish and Berry Street. A patient may also see a local independent dietitian or a hospital outpatient department. Its distinctive bet is on the provider side: make insurance participation and private-practice administration easier, then use that supply to make the patient marketplace useful. The approach is copyable in principle - begin with a profession whose expertise is valuable but whose small practices are buried in administrative work. It works best where a reimbursable service exists, where practitioners want independence and where patients can be matched without sacrificing clinical judgment.

The limit follows the same logic. A person without a compatible benefit may still face a substantial cash price. An estimate can differ from an adjudicated claim. A network can grow while a particular town or specialty remains thin. And software can return time to a clinician only if it fits the actual visit. Fay has built an impressive path through the waiting room. Whether a patient stays with a dietitian depends on what happens after the paperwork finally stops talking.