Brightline improves behavioral and mental health for children and teens across the US with convenient virtual care, and scheduling appointments through Acuity Enterprise makes it possible to achieve that goal.

Searching for the right scheduling platform

As a young company in early 2020, Brightline rose to the challenge of building a completely virtual platform where families could access much-needed behavioral and mental health care for kids and teens online. While young people’s mental health needs compounded during a growing pandemic and its “new normal” of learning and working from home, Brightline charged forward with Acuity Enterprise to respond to the call for help—and continues to lead such efforts. 

“We aggressively built and launched the first version of our platform in twelve weeks,” said chief technology officer Jonathan Simon.

But it wasn’t an easy process—Brightline’s platform had to enable families to easily schedule virtual care appointments and modify them without hassle. Plus, there was the added challenge of being HIPAA compliant and connecting members with providers and matching them with the correct appointment types for what they needed, such as a speech evaluation versus an intake appointment for therapy.

“After looking into it, I knew I did not want to build scheduling and that it wouldn’t be possible with four developers in three months along with building the rest of the platform,” Simon said. “It would have taken resources we didn’t have and we knew it must be a solved problem.”

Fortunately, Brightline’s research process led them to Acuity Enterprise, which had all the right attributes to help them pull off the launch. Along with offering built-in integrations with their existing tech stack, Simon said Acuity’s clear API documentation and uncomplicated sales process sealed the deal.

Getting Acuity up and running fast

“Later during the 2020 wildfires in California, when families needed support quickly, we even configured our webinar events through Acuity,” he said. “There was no manual buildout, and we started hosting webinars to get them support, without touching our codebase.”

Erica Hayes, Brightline’s senior care operations business partner, helps to onboard clinicians and to make sure they connect seamlessly with patients. She said Acuity is instrumental in keeping the virtual scheduling process viable—particularly its automatic appointment reminders with links and instructions for accessing sessions.

“It’s been really supportive to have a system that separates appointment types and ensures there’s no double bookings,” she said. “It’s about being able to trust that once set up, your system will run smoothly.”

Finding a true partner in Acuity Enterprise

She noted that working with her dedicated account manager was key in tackling challenges that presented themselves, such as mass block scheduling holidays for care providers. Along with personalized guidance, receiving the account manager’s monthly newsletters with product updates and hacks has improved her workflow and creative applications.

“Having someone so responsive and knowledgeable and quick to help is incredibly meaningful,” Hayes said.

She looks forward to leaning on Acuity’s partnership in the future as Brightline expands its offerings and provides more families convenient access to behavioral and mental health support.

“I know how hard accessing behavioral health care can be—when you need help, you need open doors,” she said. “Making scheduling simple for busy families can bring down stress, which reduces a real pain point for parents and caregivers.”

Step up your scheduling.