When Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in the 1990s, his vision was simple: employ the limitless nature of the internet to create an everything store that offered even the rarest titles, likely unavailable in your local bookshop. And, it worked. This digital-first strategy eventually upended retail itself, delivering unprecedented personalization and access to everyone.
Telehealth once promised something similarly transformative for healthcare. Free from geographical and logistical constraints, it had the opportunity to connect patients with precisely the right clinician for their unique needs, whether managing PTSD and autism together or facing depression layered with an eating disorder.
Despite billions in venture capital investments pouring into major up-and-coming telehealth platforms, the industry failed to realize that vision. Instead, many companies adopted McDonald’s-like, commoditized, one-size-fits-all service menus, where, despite claims, patients aren’t matched carefully with a clinician fit to meet their needs. They’re matched with an available provider, often at the expense of the patient’s care.
The System Fails Families
As a licensed mental health clinician herself, the founder of My Psych Match experienced this problem firsthand when her son began showing signs of autism. Even with her vast experience navigating the maze of telehealth providers, it proved nearly impossible to get her son the care he needed. Schools dismissed her concerns, specialists wouldn’t return her calls, and providers felt unqualified to conduct the assessments necessary to secure her son a proper diagnosis. At one desperate moment, she found herself on the brink of flying from Florida to Utah to find someone who did. To say the least, the experience was draining, frustrating, and eye-opening.
Once they did get answers, it changed everything. With a clear diagnosis, they were able to secure school accommodations, including sensory breaks, quiet spaces, and focused academic support. Her son shifted from painfully struggling and harming himself in frustration to succeeding in an environment that finally understood him and was willing to adapt.
This deeply personal journey revealed that telehealth had not fulfilled its promise. The existing platforms were failing families, especially those dealing with dual diagnoses or less common conditions. Recognizing the urgent need for a smarter, more tailored solution, she founded My Psych Match, a telepsychiatry platform focused on personalized psychiatric care, not generalized talk therapy.
Unlike therapy-focused platforms such as BetterHelp or Talkspace, My Psych Match does not offer talk therapy or hire therapists. Instead, it builds highly specialized teams of psychiatric providers — doctors and nurse practitioners—matched to each patient’s unique diagnostic profile. These providers focus on medication management and psychiatric treatment, particularly for patients with complex or overlapping conditions like autism and trauma, ADHD and OCD, or bipolar disorder and anxiety.
The Scale vs. Specialization Dilemma
Still, few telehealth platforms embrace specialization even with the clear market need. Much of the blame falls on the venture capital model, where VC funding rewards rapid growth and profitability. This, in turn, pushes telehealth startups to adopt simpler models that serve a general population with generic offerings.
On the flip side, highly personalized care requires niche providers to buy into the model of detailed intake processes and specific treatments, factors that add complexity and slow growth. This makes them less attractive to investors focused on short-term gains. But if a company’s true mission is to care for people, then that very complexity should be seen as a strength, especially when telehealth is uniquely positioned to meet these needs by drawing on a nationwide network of specialized clinicians that traditional, location-bound systems simply can’t access.
The Growing Demand for Nuanced Care
But there’s still hope. Platforms like Brightline and NOCD, which specialize in pediatric mental healthcare and obsessive-compulsive disorders, respectively, are driving change for condition-specific care. While still rare, these companies are proving that specialized telehealth can be both clinically effective and drive healthy growth.
A 2021 study in JAMA Psychiatry found that patients matched with clinicians based on specific diagnostic expertise had significantly better outcomes than those assigned more generally. Another report conducted by the CDC highlights elevated rates of mental health symptoms and substance use, often co-occurring among adults with disabilities. It’s also important to note that the pandemic worsened health challenges, especially among vulnerable populations. This underscores the urgent need for targeted care models and proves that specialization is essential for long-term patient success.
A Smarter Future for Telehealth
Specialized telehealth remains one of the industry’s most promising — and largely untapped — opportunities. In a landscape dominated by commoditized care, the platforms that rise above will be those bold enough to embrace complexity: building precision-driven teams, matching patients with clinicians based on true clinical fit, and prioritizing outcomes alongside growth. The future won’t belong to those scaling generalists — it will belong to those who deliver thoughtful, personalized care at scale.
To get there, telehealth must shed the “fast-food” model and fulfill its original promise: accessible, individualized care designed to meet patients where they are. Platforms like My Psych Match offer a glimpse of what that future could look like: clinically nuanced, deeply personalized, and built for the people who need it most.
