As a registered dietitian (RD) with greater than a decade of expertise, I’ve labored in a variety of healthcare settings through the years— from inpatient hospitals and outpatient clinics to personal practices—and the one situation that continues to plague all of those institutions is lack of insurance coverage protection for diet session.
Whereas sufferers in a hospital can sometimes search the counsel of an RD as a part of their keep, many received’t have the ability to proceed that care as soon as they go residence as insurance coverage protection in outpatient and personal observe settings is tough to come back by. If shoppers do have protection, it’s usually for a really restricted quantity of periods (round two per 12 months most) On condition that correct diet is likely one of the major methods to forestall a number of kinds of continual ailments, working with a nutritionist on wholesome consuming habits is one thing that the majority adults may gain advantage from.
Fortunately, one firm has made it their mission to deal with these long-standing points for sufferers and diet professionals alike…and that firm is Fay Diet. As an RD, I examined this on-line service to get firsthand perception into the way it works, what it gives, and if it’s value making an attempt.
What’s Fay Diet?
Fay Diet is a web based platform that connects board-certified registered dietitians/nutritionists (RDs and RDNs) to people by insurance-covered digital or in-person appointments. It’s additionally the nation’s greatest and fastest-growing community of dietitians.
Fay was began by Jason Rasmussen, co-founder and CEO of Fay Diet. “Each my mother and sister are registered dietitians, and earlier than beginning at Harvard Enterprise College, I used to be serving to them with their personal observe,” he mentioned. “What I discovered was that many dietitians struggled to just accept insurance coverage and open a non-public observe, but so many individuals wanted the assistance of an inexpensive, private dietitian.”
Rasmussen quickly made it his mission to empower RDs and make medical diet remedy extra inexpensive and accessible to People. “In America, over half of adults1 have a number of preventable situations linked to consuming patterns, however entry to diet care has been gate-kept by prohibitively excessive prices and obstacles for dietitians to just accept insurance coverage,” he defined. The corporate goals to assist hundreds of thousands of People reside longer, more healthy, and happier lives by the facility of diet.
My Expertise Utilizing Fay Diet
A platform linking you to RDs that take your insurance coverage actually sounds alluring, however what’s it really like to make use of? Right here’s how my check run went.
On condition that I used to be making an attempt the platform on a demo, I used to be given a particular hyperlink with an accompanying fee technique to make use of upon signing up. For at-home customers, you’d enroll as you’ll for another service, inputting your primary private and fee data (for co-pays if in case you have any). You then enter your medical insurance data. In case you don’t have medical insurance, your journey on the platform will finish right here because it hinges upon this prerequisite.
From there, it supplied me a listing of RDs to select from primarily based on my location, insurance coverage firm, and first diet concern. With every listed RD, you may learn a bit of bit about their philosophy and what areas of diet they concentrate on.
The primary RD I selected wasn’t really accessible to see new shoppers—which was a bit of complicated, to be trustworthy—however the subsequent one I picked was. Nevertheless, although accessible for each digital and in-person appointments, this subsequent RD was situated in Connecticut—a really lengthy drive from my residence in Colorado for an in-person session. If I hadn’t been searching for a digital appointment, this might have required further time and looking out to discover a Colorado-based RD.
Fortunately, digital labored for me, so I went with the Connecticut-based RD and was capable of get an appointment inside every week of reserving, which is spectacular provided that many outpatient and personal observe RDs are booked out for weeks (if not longer). Reserving was easy and I acquired loads of useful e-mail communication after the actual fact, sharing the whole lot I wanted to know earlier than the appointment, in addition to frequent appointment reminders. Logging into my appointment was simply as easy—I clicked the Zoom hyperlink within the e-mail and entered proper into the assembly.
My RD was very competent with a formidable 25 years of expertise working in a variety of settings with quite a lot of sufferers. She did all the suitable issues when it got here to an preliminary session: inquiring about my medical historical past, household historical past, primary biometrics, typical consuming patterns, exercise stage, and extra. She then supplied very sound diet recommendation (I opted to obtain normal diet data) that was catered to me, recommending balanced consuming practices that included all the key meals teams (according to my dietary preferences) to supply the right amount of macro- and micronutrients.
We additionally had a candid dialog about who I used to be and what I used to be as much as. This RD had nothing however constructive issues to say about working with Fay as a long-time skilled within the subject. She defined how Fay took care of all of the behind-the-scenes insurance coverage work, liberating up RDs to see extra shoppers and sometimes touchdown sufferers a number of coated appointments. This has allowed her to have long-standing relationships with Fay shoppers, making a fair greater influence on their well being by diet remedy.
She shared a number of Fay consumer success tales with me and guaranteed me that she was being compensated competitively by the corporate—all issues I like to listen to as an RD who helps different RDs.
Remaining Ideas

Sponsored by Fay Diet
Execs and Cons of Fay Diet
- Simple-to-use
- Accessible, regardless of your location
- Works seamlessly along with your insurance coverage supplier
- Fewer choices for in-person appointments
- Solely accessible for these with insurance coverage
General, I feel Fay Diet is offering an excellent service for each RDs and sufferers. All through my profession, I’ve seen time and time once more how problematic a scarcity of insurance coverage protection for diet providers might be for individuals who want it.
Fay addresses this by doing the grunt work for customers and dietitians—a intermediary that serves either side. This allows extra People (with medical insurance) to obtain diet care, whereas additionally empowering RDs to construct up their companies. The corporate additionally has an intensive vetting course of for brand spanking new hires (in response to the RD I spoke to), making certain that solely skilled and well-qualified suppliers are featured on the platform.
So if you happen to’re searching for diet session and have medical insurance, it’s greater than value logging onto Fay to see what your choices are. It’s far faster and fewer irritating than calling your insurance coverage firm for protection affirmation after which doing further leg work to seek out coated RDs in your space.
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Buttorff C, Ruder T, Bauman M. A number of Power Circumstances in the USA. Rand Corp.; 2017.
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