Notes from building Lullgrove, on triage logic, privacy design, employer reporting, and the structural gaps in how mental health benefits work.
Why the standard 3-week triage wait isn't a capacity problem, it's a structural failure in how urgency is assessed before anyone picks up the phone.
Most mental health tools look for keyword flags. We built something that listens for context, tone, and the gap between what someone says and what they mean.
The utilization reports HR gets from EAPs are often too thin or too raw. What actually helps a benefits manager make a decision looks very different.
Employees decide whether to keep going within moments of a first check-in. What you say in those two minutes determines whether the tool works at all.
Anonymity sounds like the right answer for mental health, but it creates a dead end: no follow-up, no routing, no continuity. There's a better model.
The conversation about replacing vs. supplementing EAPs is the wrong frame. What's actually missing is the gap between someone reaching out and the right therapist being briefed.
Without a triage layer, access to mental health resources is just a list. The routing decision is where the real value is.
For mild to moderate presentations, guided structured programs have strong evidence. The problem is they're offered as a fallback, not as a calibrated fit.
What happens in the first question shapes whether someone continues, whether they're honest, and whether the result is useful. Most systems get this backwards.
We kept watching the same thing happen: employees reach out for help, a form goes in, and three weeks later someone calls to book an intake. We decided to fix the middle.