The Neurology Clinic That Comes Home

The cruel surprise of a neurological diagnosis is how quickly medicine can become project management. A family may need a subspecialist, a genetic counselor, a therapist, a new medication, an insurer’s approval and a clinical trial - all while learning a new vocabulary and adjusting life around a disease that does not wait. The clinic visit is only one square on the calendar. The work between visits can consume the household.

Synapticure exists in that in-between space. The Chicago company operates a virtual specialty practice for neurodegenerative disease, bringing neurologists and an interdisciplinary care team to patients in all 50 states. It treats cognitive conditions including Alzheimer’s and related dementias, neuromuscular diseases including ALS, and movement disorders including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and ataxias. The screen is the front door; behind it sit care coordinators, behavioral-health clinicians, genetic counselors, speech-language therapists, insurance navigators and people who know how to search for a relevant trial.

This is not an accidental market thesis. Co-founders Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya encountered the system as patient and caregiver after Wallach was diagnosed with ALS at 37 in 2017. The couple, who also created the advocacy group I AM ALS, had policy experience and an unusually intimate view of the gaps. Peter Wallach, Jason Langheier and Jonathan Hirsch joined them as co-founders, bringing finance, medicine, technology and health-data experience. Synapticure was founded in 2019 and publicly launched its ALS clinic in 2022.

“People living with ALS end up having to fight both the disease and the system.”

Brian Wallach, co-founder and board co-chair

The family is the unit of care

General telehealth is usually designed around an encounter: choose a complaint, meet a clinician, receive a prescription or referral. Neurodegenerative disease resists that tidy transaction. Symptoms change. Mobility and speech may decline. Caregivers absorb logistics, uncertainty and emotional strain. A neurologist may be excellent and still lack the hours or staff to coordinate everything occurring outside the exam room.

Synapticure’s difference is not the novelty of video. It is continuity. Patients are assigned a team intended to stay with them, update a personalized plan and work alongside existing local physicians. A caregiver can join from another city. If an exam, infusion, lab draw or therapy must happen physically, the virtual team coordinates with local partners rather than pretending the entire problem can live online. The result resembles a national specialty clinic whose rooms happen to be scattered across patients’ homes.

A person can arrive before a diagnosis is settled, with a confirmed condition, or in search of a second opinion. The clinic reviews records, conducts a virtual neurological assessment and builds a plan. Depending on the case, that can include medication management, cognitive testing, genetic testing and counseling, speech therapy, mental-health care, advance-care planning, remote respiratory monitoring or help evaluating clinical trials. For dementia, Synapticure also participates in the federal CMS GUIDE model, which can provide eligible traditional Medicare beneficiaries with coordinated care, round-the-clock support and respite services for unpaid caregivers.

A business with two front doors

Patients and caregivers are the users, but they are not the only customers. Synapticure can be reached directly, with care covered by many commercial insurance plans and Medicare. It also sells its clinical capacity through partnerships with health plans, accountable care organizations, health systems, primary-care groups, neurology clinics and community organizations. In that role, Synapticure becomes a virtual neurology service line: a partner can refer a patient, exchange records and continue local care while the national team supplies scarce specialists and coordination.

That structure places the company between several familiar alternatives. An academic medical center offers deep expertise but may require long travel and long waits. A local neurologist offers proximity but may not have a multidisciplinary team or a direct line into research. A general telehealth company offers convenience without disease-specific depth. Newer virtual brain-health clinics compete more directly, especially in dementia. Synapticure’s wager is that breadth within neurodegeneration - paired with a team that remains involved after the appointment - creates a more useful middle layer.

The company says new patients can typically meet a physician in less than two weeks. On its partner page, it reports an average of one week from intake to appointment, a 96 Net Promoter Score and 99 percent retention excluding death. It also reports that, after at least six months enrolled, patients had 19 percent fewer emergency-department visits and 12 percent fewer inpatient admissions than during the preceding year. Those figures are company-reported, not results from a published randomized trial, but they reveal what institutional buyers want the model to prove: faster access, satisfied patients and fewer costly crises.

Service and satisfaction figures are reported by Synapticure for prospective partners.

Research is part of the care plan

Neurology is a peculiar field in which families can know that experimental science is moving quickly while feeling that ordinary care moves slowly. Synapticure makes research navigation one of its three stated pillars, alongside comprehensive expert care and research acceleration. Clinicians help patients understand whether a trial or newly approved therapy fits, assemble the records and testing that eligibility may require, and coordinate with research sites.

This is valuable clinically and strategically. Genetic subtypes, biomarkers and disease stage can determine which treatment makes sense. A practice that repeatedly organizes those data can reduce friction for patients and potentially help research partners find appropriate participants. Synapticure has worked with Columbia University and Clene Nanomedicine on an expanded-access program for an investigational ALS therapy. It has also named Massachusetts General Hospital and UCSF as early clinical collaborators and established an advisory relationship with The Michael J. Fox Foundation.

The company’s partnerships show a second route to scale. The ALS Association helps direct people nationwide to telehealth. Pearl Health connects Medicare patients with dementia support. As an established CMS GUIDE participant, Synapticure can deliver dementia services in every state. In 2026, MyBrainGuide, an online resource created by UsAgainstAlzheimer’s, added Synapticure as one route for families seeking faster access to dementia assessment and cognitive specialists. That same year, Synapticure added dedicated ataxia care, pushing further into the long tail of disorders for which subspecialists are unevenly distributed.

The moat is the messy work

Telemedicine software itself is not rare. The harder assets are clinical: a 50-state practice, licenses and credentialing, subspecialists willing to work as a team, payer contracts, referral pipes, quality systems, research knowledge and local partners for everything a laptop cannot do. Synapticure earned The Joint Commission’s ambulatory healthcare accreditation in 2024, a signal that the company wants to be measured as a medical provider rather than a software marketplace.

Its $25 million Series A, announced in November 2024 and led by B Capital, included strategic investors such as CommonSpirit Health, CVS Health Ventures and Optum Ventures, alongside GV, RA Capital Management, Rock Health Capital and Nexus NeuroTech Ventures. The mix is telling. Some investors understand distribution and payment; others understand life science and trials. Synapticure needs both. It raised $6 million in seed financing before launch, bringing publicly announced funding to $31 million.

The company said the Series A would fund partnerships, technology, analytics, remote monitoring and research. Technology can make records move faster and flag patients who may need screening, but clinical credibility is the product’s load-bearing wall. The culture Synapticure describes follows from that: many team members have personal connections to neurodegenerative disease, while clinicians and operators trade new papers with enthusiasm. Empathy gets the company through the door. Expertise and execution determine whether it can stay.

“We’re building the kind of care system we wish every family had access to.”

Synapticure

Where the clinic goes next

Synapticure is part of a broader move from episodic telehealth toward virtual specialty care. The category works best where expertise is scarce, journeys are long and much of the value lies in interpretation and coordination. Neurology fits all three. Yet the model also has boundaries. Hands-on exams, imaging, infusions and emergencies remain local. Insurance coverage varies. Video access does not erase broadband, language or device barriers. A responsible virtual clinic succeeds by knowing when to reach into the physical system.

The most interesting possibility is that Synapticure becomes infrastructure for that system. A rural primary-care doctor does not need to reproduce an academic neurology department. A regional health plan does not need to employ every subspecialist in every county. A caregiver should not need to become an unpaid referral coordinator. The virtual practice can sit across those gaps, preserving local relationships while importing expertise.

There is no cure hidden in the company’s interface, despite the aspirational name. There is something more immediate: less waiting, fewer disconnected handoffs and a person who knows what comes after the diagnosis. For families living on neurological time, the difference between months and weeks is not convenience. It is usable life.