Brightside Health Reviews

3.9

77% would recommend to a friend

(146 total reviews)
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Brad Kittredge

75% approve of CEO

73% positive business outlook

Brightside Health has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 146 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Brightside Health employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Healthcare industry (3.4 stars).

Reviews by job title

146 reviews
1.0
8 Apr 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There used to be great pros, such as work life balance. Being treated as an adult with responsibilities outside of your job. As well as flexibility. it is why many of us came to work here. We were the most happy and productive, with weekly team meetings and a great culture and atmosphere. But they brought in a new director and she is making sure that is all being taken away.

Cons

New director is micromanaging every aspect of your day. We are no longer treated like adults and with respect. She is very controlling and cannot tolerate us having any free time that she is not aware of. Our philosophy used to be, if you need to go to the doctor or pick up your kids just make sure you do it not during your phone shift and it’s fine. We were never properly trained to how to handle these phone shifts in the first place, which is completely negligent. We are a MENTAL HEALTH company not SALES. People are in distress and we could cost someone their life not being trained. Rushing us through answering more calls and tickets faster to be a “lean” department is going to make many people who are already suffering suffer more. Putting performance goals on a team assisting upset people in mental health who are LITERALLY begging us for help is absolutely ludicrous. You can’t hire an entire department of people who are here because they got hired under a completely different premise and because they care about helping people. Then decide you want to be some corporate big shot and say “if they don’t like it, they can leave” and turn it into a complete different company culture. If you lack empathy you shouldn’t be in this field.

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Brightside Health Response
3y
Thank you for sharing this feedback. As a mental health company, Brightside Health recognizes the importance of fostering a work environment where employees feel empowered to do their best work, especially in supporting our members. We encourage work-life balance and remain flexible to ensure that work fits together with personal priorities and commitments. This balance allows us to show up wholeheartedly for work and promotes better mental health of our employees. Further, we are thoughtful and intentional in all that we do, including all aspects of our onboarding and training processes, to ensure that our members receive the highest quality of care possible. Where there are additional training needs or clarity about business decisions, we would encourage employees to connect with their teams, managers, department leads, or the People Team to identify and solve for those gaps. You can also reach out to HR@brightside.com to share feedback directly.
2.0
10 Jan 2023

Concerning lack of transparency and future outlook

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great benefits, their mission is easy to feel connected to

Cons

They are struggling for unknown reasons, since they constantly talk about how ‘well positioned’ they are, and transparency surrounding the struggle is nonexistent until the day of layoffs. It truly seems as though they say what is needed to keep people around knowing it won’t last (which is probably common in start ups). They’re trying to move faster than capable and burning employees along the way when things don’t pan out. Even not being impacted, their way of handling layoffs was horrifying. To organize a meeting very late for the next morning, and then only to bring up layoffs AND lay people off all in a matter of 15 minutes is just in very poor taste. they have shoddy at best marketing practices including research studies published, and clinicians may be safe given the model but for corporate I’d say stay away.

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Brightside Health Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on your Brightside Health experience. Feedback is an integral part of our culture, as it helps us create a better mental health care experience for our corporate employees, clinicians, and members. As we don’t discuss personnel matters in a public forum, we encourage corporate employees to connect with their manager or HR@brightside.com to directly address these important matters raised.
1.0
27 May 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

• The insurance is genuinely good. • I work from home, which I’m grateful for. • I used to take pride in helping people with their mental health. Unfortunately, that belief has eroded over time.

Cons

This company markets itself as one that prioritizes mental health—but if that were true, we wouldn’t have dropped $500+ surprise bills on patients right before Christmas. These charges were the result of a system failure that delayed billing, but instead of owning up to the error with empathy, or waiting until after the holidays, we sent the invoices anyway. Worse, we’re in the middle of charging $95 per session to individuals who were told (by us) we were in-network with their insurance, only for them to find out—after multiple sessions—that we weren’t. These patients were misled, yet they’re being held financially responsible for our mistake. The solution? A “gracious” offer of a payment plan and a scripted apology. If someone had ten sessions, they now owe $950 for care they believed was covered. If this company cared even remotely, they would at the very least inform customer support—the first point of contact for members—before dropping the ball. Instead, we find out alongside the patients when phones start ringing off the hook. Transparency? It doesn’t exist here. The decision-makers act like the word has been scrubbed from their vocabulary. In January 2023, someone left a review here noting that “They are struggling for unknown reasons, since they constantly talk about how 'well positioned' they are, and transparency surrounding the struggle is nonexistent until the day of layoffs.” Two years later, nothing has changed. We’ve just endured yet another round of layoffs (following one in January 2025), both executed with the same lack of grace and clarity. And to be clear: I’m not a bitter ex-employee. I still work here. This is simply an honest look at what’s really going on behind the scenes. Last December, right after we dropped surprise bills on members, leadership handed out unnecessary promotions and raises for “senior” titles that didn’t even exist before—roles seemingly created to justify salary bumps for select people. Then, they laid off employees right before merit raises were due, only to give out insulting raises that had nothing to do with performance or metrics. No explanation, just a collective sense of disappointment and disrespect. There’s no appreciation here—just corporate spin and empty words. If you speak up or ask for transparency, and your message doesn’t align with the rose-colored narrative leadership wants to sell, you’re instantly labeled as negative. There’s even more that I’m leaving out but at this point, I’m just tired. I now expect nothing from this company. The contradictions and disappointments no longer surprise me. It’s painful to see how far they stray from their supposed “Mental health is at the center of what we do.” There is no “BrightSide”. If you value transparency, integrity, and respect—run. Or, perhaps wait until the next layoffs (you know, the ones they said weren’t going to happen again in the last layoffs) and maybe you’ll get a severance. Cheers.

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Brightside Health Response
1y
Brad here, CEO of Brightside. I take all feedback seriously and believe you have raised a couple of important points. The only way we can achieve our mission is to be a viable business and this requires us to collect on the fees for the services we deliver, which includes payments from health insurance companies and from patients. Unfortunately for all of us, healthcare billing is extremely challenging. Eligibility data is notoriously unreliable and payment submissions are surprisingly complex. We strive to make billing timely and fair for everyone while operating within the constraints of this difficult system. There are absolutely ways we can do this better and we are making major investments here. Notably, I hear your feedback about the timing of the December collections efforts and agree that is sensitive. I’ve discussed all of your feedback with the billing team and they are giving it thoughtful consideration. The broad characterizations suggested here about Brightside are simply not true. Brightside started with and remains true to a clear mission - to deliver life changing mental healthcare to everyone who needs it. We have the most uncompromising standards for patient care and I take the Hippocratic Oath as seriously as any doctor. You can also see how we are leading the industry on quality and transparency through the recently published Mental Health Quality Scorecard. Ensuring that the company is economically viable does not mean we are all about the money - it means we can scale and sustain our impact. And the reality is that building a company like this is unbelievably hard. We have made amazing progress and also have many more challenges to overcome, as is the case with all early stage companies and especially those in healthcare. We do employee pulse surveys twice a year with phenomenal feedback across the team. I’m sorry your experience hasn’t been aligned with this and we work to ensure that every Brightside team member feels empowered and supported. I would welcome the chance to discuss with you directly as I’m always eager to keep learning how we can improve and maximize our impact together.
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Glassdoor has 204 Brightside Health reviews submitted anonymously by Brightside Health employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Brightside Health is right for you.