BUILD BETTER HEALTH
Co-Creating a More Just and
Sustainable System for All.
Build Better Health is a nonprofit organization founded by independent provider advocates promoting public health by educating communities and stakeholders about barriers to care, advocating for equitable health system reform, and supporting efforts that expand access to quality healthcare.
The Mental Health Insurance Reform Task Force is a national coalition focused specifically on Behavioral Healthcare access with involvement from 40+ states.
The People’s Solidarity Fund Healthcare cooperative addresses the full spectrum of healthcare and is in its early stages of being built.
the people doing the work
01
Providers
You’ve had reimbursement slashed, payments delayed, and money clawed back after the fact. Many of you have taken second jobs or have insurance networks entirely, You are being overruled by insurers’ algorithms. Your clinical judgment is ignored. Care you know is necessary is denied anyway.
02
Clients & Families
You’ve been denied coverage for services your plan claims to cover. You’ve paid monthly premiums for insurance that doesn’t cover therapy, medication, or treatment. You’ve been caught in the middle of fragmented systems that don’t talk to each other, while your mental health suffers.
03
Advocates
You've seen the same playbook state after state: insurers stalling care, underpaying providers, dodging parity laws, and walking away with record profits while communities collapse under the weight of it. You’re watching corporate decision-making replace medical care. Algorithms, profit margins, and legal gray zones are dictating who gets help and who doesn’t.
Build Better Health is a nonprofit forging a new path for mental health care; challenging insurance industry failures and building people-led systems where access, equity, and respect are non-negotiable.
We’re mental health providers, clients, advocates, and everyday people fighting for a system that actually works. One rooted in transparency, fair compensation, and collective respect, so that accepting insurance isn’t a sacrifice, and accessing care isn’t a privilege.
The truth is, the current system won’t fix itself. So we’re doing it differently: community-led, integrity-driven, and grounded in care over profit.
The Problem is Structural
This crisis was not caused by individual clinicians, overwhelmed clients, or a lack of “resilience.”
It was engineered. Insurance companies have created a health care crisis through deliberate system design; extracting profit while violating parity laws, destabilizing clinical care, and shifting the cost of that damage onto providers, clients, and communities.
Parity Violations
Mental health parity laws exist. Insurers routinely ignore them.
Coverage is restricted through excessive prior authorizations, arbitrary treatment limits, and unequal standards that would never be applied to medical or surgical care. Mental health is treated as optional, even when the law says otherwise.
Administrative Overload
The system is intentionally hard to navigate.
Credentialing delays, unpaid claims, endless appeals, retroactive clawbacks, and opaque rules aren’t inefficiencies; they are deterrents. They are designed to exhaust providers and discourage people from using the benefits they are supposed to have.
The Results
Providers burn out or leave. People wait, give up, or go without care. Rural and underserved communities are hit first and hardest.
This is what happens when profit is prioritized over people. This is why incremental fixes are not enough. The system itself has to change, and we believe if we work together, we can BE that change.
Reimbursement Manipulation
Insurance reimbursement rates to providers are not paid fairly or accurately under the law.
This forces clinicians out of networks, creates months-long waitlists, and pushes care into cash-only models that most people cannot afford. Access doesn’t disappear because providers are greedy or don’t care; it disappears because the math no longer works.
Vertical Monopolization
Insurance companies increasingly own networks, platforms, pharmacy benefit managers, and “care management” systems. This concentration of power eliminates competition, suppresses accountability, and allows insurers to set the rules, enforce the rules, and profit from the outcomes. all while blaming providers and their own customers for the fallout.
What We're Building
Beyond enforcement, we are developing the infrastructure for community-owned mental healthcare, ethical, sustainable, and outside corporate control.
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Cooperative models that distribute decision-making power to providers and patients, not shareholders.xt goes here
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Transparent pricing, fair compensation, and care decisions made by clinicians, not actuaries.
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Long-term stability through collective ownership and resistance to market consolidation. The People's Solidarity Fund is something you can learn about as we develop the legal and organizational frameworks for larger cooperative structures.
What We’ve Done So Far
Since launching, we have:
Surveyed providers across multiple states, confirming that low insurance reimbursement is the leading reason clinicians opt out of network, limiting access to care.
Created a formal provider petition to the Kentucky Department of Insurance, calling for transparency, parity enforcement, and fair pay Sign Here!
Held monthly Task Force meetings with providers from across 22+ states, serving as a collaborative hub for advocacy, connection, and training.
Met with legislators and state DOIs to elevate provider perspectives and explore legislative solutions.
Testified on behalf of bi-partisan behavioral health legislation that would help improve access to care
Partnered with aligned advocacy groups, locally and nationally, to strengthen shared impact.
Assisted with the drafting of state legislation to address systemic gaps in rate transparency, parity, and oversight.
Advocated for better federal oversight by visiting several lawmakers in person in Washington, D.C. and delivering our federal priorities for better healthcare
Launched buildbetterhealth.org to gather real-life stories from clients and providers navigating insurance-related challenges and provide a resource hub for advocates and policy makers
Developed a state-by-state strategy guide, mapping policy models and enforcement mechanisms to inform next steps.
Hosted in-person Provider Roundtables, throughout Kentucky featuring CEUs, dinner, and online for other states
Helped launch multiple state branches of MHIRTF
Developed Subcommittees focused on Legislation, Litigation, Education and Innovation
Building a healthcare cooperative called People’s Solidarity Fund
Founded in August 2024, the Mental Health Insurance Reform Task Force (MHIRTF) emerged in response to the mounting challenges mental health providers and clients face within the insurance system. As clinicians and practice owners, we saw how low reimbursement rates, clawbacks, and administrative barriers were limiting care for both clients and the professionals striving to serve them.
Clients are denied care.
Therapists are buried in red tape.
Together, we’re demanding change
OUR COMMITMENT
Build Better Health, is a non-profit organization here to help revolutionize healthcare by holding insurance companies and other large corporations who are key players in healthcare delivery accountable for their actions. We seek to help build mutually respectful systems where all involved, rather than only a select few, are able to benefit and thrive. Our work is rooted in:
Expanding access to affordable care
Securing fair, sustainable compensation for providers
Advancing transparency and accountability of insurance companies
Creating new community-governed systems altogether from the ground up
Through listening, data collection, documentation, relationship-building, legislative advocacy and thinking outside of the box, we’re working to transform insight into action, and to ensure providers and the communities they serve have a voice in shaping the systems they operate within.
We began organizing with a shared goal: to better understand these systemic issues and take empowered, collaborative action toward a more mutually respectful model of care that honors clients, providers, and the sustainability of care systems as a whole.
Our movement has grown to be a national one, and our efforts have expanded beyond behavioral health. We believe with collective care and mutual respect guiding us, we can build a healthcare system that puts people over profit and restores power to the whole rather than a select few.