What you'll find here

This guide covers everything a practitioner or team member needs to understand how care is defined, structured, and delivered at Welltheory.

This is an eagle-eye view of the program structure and member experience. As you go through this guide you will dive into each component in more detail.

The what vs. the how

Care at Welltheory rests on two things: the skills practitioners bring, and the relationship they build. Functional nutrition and motivational interviewing are the what — the clinical and communication tools every practitioner carries into a session. The therapeutic relationship is the how — the intuition, timing, and coaching nuance that determines when and how those tools actually get used.

Registered dietitians lean on functional nutrition as their clinical foundation; health coaches lean on lifestyle and behavior change. Both are grounded in motivational interviewing, and both are only as effective as the relationship carrying them.

The sections below walk through both: the tools themselves, and the layered model for how they're applied over the course of care.

Motivational interviewing — a core skill

Motivational interviewing is one of the two "what" skills practitioners carry into every session — the communication half of the toolkit. It keeps the member in the driver's seat: we're not in the business of prescribing and dictating, we're in the business of guiding and supporting. But MI is a skill, not a guarantee — how well it lands depends on the therapeutic relationship a practitioner has built with that member. The principles below are the mechanics of the skill itself.

The Clinical Care Model — a layered model

Welltheory's Clinical Care Model is a foundational approach utilizing diet and lifestyle. It's layered, not a rigid sequence: food and lifestyle are always part of the foundation, with targeted testing and supplementation available at any point alongside them — precise tools for specific needs, not a last resort.

The care arc

Members typically meet with their provider every 3 weeks on average. That cadence isn't fixed, though — providers flex frequency to match where a member actually is in their journey.

A member early in their membership might meet every 2 weeks, when building momentum and locking in early wins matters most. A more established member — six months or so in, and shifting into "maintenance mode" — might prefer meeting less often, using sessions more as general check-ins.

Practitioner roles

Two practitioner types deliver care at Welltheory. Think of them as two sides of the same coin — both working holistically to support whole-body care, each a subject matter expert in a distinct area.

How practitioners are assigned

Both Registered Dietitians and Health Coaches conduct Onboarding Calls, and members are matched based on provider availability. From there, fit comes down to what a member needs most: those who want or need more focused nutrition support work with an RD; those looking for more targeted lifestyle or behavior change support work with a Health Coach.

In practice, most members start their care journey with an RD — building foundational nutrition habits and addressing targeted body system support through supplementation or testing. When a member is ready to shift focus toward lifestyle change, or is ready to move into maintenance, they'll typically transition to a Health Coach.

Where Welltheory fits

Welltheory doesn't exist in isolation from the rest of a member's care. Most members come to us already working with specialists, a primary care provider, or mental health support — and Welltheory sits at the intersection of all of it. We're not a replacement for any of these relationships. Instead, we help members sit in the driver's seat of that intersection: looking at each piece of their care, and layering in an autoimmune, whole-body lens that connects the dots between them.

Modes of care

These principles apply in both directions — how practitioners show up with members, and how the Welltheory team shows up internally. They are the foundation for every program decision we make.

Our three stakeholders

Holistic decision-making means weighing input from all three groups — not optimizing for one at the expense of the others.

Universal frameworks, individual delivery

Welltheory has established frameworks for how we approach care — digestive health, blood sugar management, symptom reduction, lifestyle support. These give our practitioners a consistent clinical foundation.

But we never deliver care universally. Every member's recommendations, pacing, and support are tailored to their unique needs, readiness, and circumstances. The framework informs the approach; the member shapes how it's applied.

We meet members where they are — from day one

We recognize that members come to Welltheory at very different starting points. Some are new to their diagnosis and need foundational guidance at every step. Others have tried everything and need someone to help them go deeper. Identifying where a member is early allows our practitioners to show up on day one providing exactly the level of support that member needs — not a generic onboarding experience.

Standard care vs. Welltheory

Root cause in practice

These aren't hypotheticals — they're real, anonymized member outcomes shared by practitioners in our internal Wins channel.

What the program is

The Welltheory program consists of recurring live coaching sessions with a registered dietitian, a health coach, or both. Using tailored nutrition and health coaching guidance — built around each member's unique symptoms and goals — the program helps members reduce their autoimmune symptoms and improve their overall quality of life.

The 12-month arc

Care progresses across two structured phases, each with its own session length, cadence, and focus. The arc is designed to move members from initial foundation-building toward increasing independence over time.

How a member moves through the program

Every member follows the same broad arc — from onboarding through active care to a structured close at the Year in Review.

Sessions are scheduled by the member on a rolling basis within the cadence of their current phase. Between sessions, members use the app to stay connected to their care.

What members work toward

Session types

Each session type has a distinct purpose in the care arc. Meet Your Coach is the only session type that sits outside the standard sequence — it's triggered by a provider transition, not by time.

Session cadence

Every member follows the same baseline session sequence. Phase 1 runs from onboarding through the 6-Month Reassessment. The 6-Month Reassessment is the transition point into Phase 2, which runs through the Year in Review.

Philosophy + role in care

The human-to-human nature of live sessions is what makes Welltheory unique. The app exists to support and extend that — not replace it. Live sessions put the app into context; the app keeps members connected to their care in between.

Between-session experience

Between live sessions, the app is where members manage their care, track their progress, and stay connected to their provider. Here's what members can do:

Overview

Welltheory sends notifications across three channels: email, in-app push, and SMS. Members can control most of these directly within the app under Settings > Notifications. Some notifications are locked on and cannot be turned off — this is intentional, as we want to ensure members stay connected to key aspects of their care. Allowing members to disable all notifications would be counterproductive to their continued engagement and progress.

The table below shows the default state for each notification. Sessions happen roughly every 3 weeks, so estimates below are averaged across a typical 3-week cycle.

Session notifications

Notifications related to scheduling, reminders, and session changes. Session reminders fire at four intervals — each can be toggled independently.

Care delivery notifications

Notifications tied to the asynchronous care experience — messages, forms, surveys, resources, and action steps.

Eligibility & account notifications

System-triggered notifications related to membership status, insurance, and profile security.

Onboarding call notifications

Notifications around the initial onboarding call. Welltheory sends reschedule prompts after cancellations and no-shows. Calendly sends its own separate booking confirmation and reminder emails independently.

Third-party notifications

Why we survey

Surveys serve three distinct purposes at Welltheory — for members, for practitioners, and for the organization.

What we measure

Surveys are designed to track improvement across the core body systems we focus on in care, as well as broader quality of life indicators.

How we use the data

Survey categories

Surveys fall into two categories based on who uses them and why.

Survey index

What each survey is designed to do.

Survey cadence

Surveys are triggered in one of three ways — by a member account action, on a fixed time-based schedule, or in response to a specific member event such as a session being scheduled or a cancellation.