FOLX Health focuses on whole person care for LGBTQIA+ patients

Many patients in the LGBTQIA+ community have encountered disrespect, insensitivity and even hostility in their dealings with healthcare providers.

Liana Douillet Guzmán, CEO of FOLX Health, says the company offers affirming, patient-centered care to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Liana Douillet Guzmán, CEO of FOLX Health, is aiming to provide a better experience for those patients. FOLX Health is a digital health service provider offering care for LGBTQIA+ patients.

The health and wellness platform offers primary care, behavioral health services, gender-affirming care and other services. FOLX Health offers more than 50,000 members, who pay a monthly membership fee.

Douillet Guzmán says she’s encouraged by the growth of FOLX, which began seeing patients in 2021.

“We were founded with a vision to create a different version of healthcare and a specific focus on doing it for the LGBTQIA+ community,” she says. “And I think it was a combination of recognizing that healthcare as it exists today is broken, but that is especially true for the LGBTQIA+ community, which exists within not just a broken system, but a system that is often openly discriminatory or violent.”

While she’s enthused about the growth of FOLX Health, she worries about healthcare for the LGBTQIA+ community with the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Trump has pledged to oust transgender members of the military and has vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports.”

So Douillet Guzmán says she feels conflicting emotions about the year ahead.

“I feel hopeful about what we're building and the members that we're serving, and excited about the way that we've been able to really shift healthcare for so many people, and also, scared and devastated by the direction the country's heading in,” she says.

Offering safe care

When FOLX Health began, the company focused on gender-affirming hormone therapy for the transgender community. “We felt like it was the segment of our community that represented the greatest area of need,” Douillet Guzmán says.

But the company now offers a wide array of services.

“It’s steadily been building to expand not only the care that we provide our trans members, but also to provide that same level of differentiated care for the broader LGBTQ community,” she says. “And so today we offer care that we think of as whole person, patient-centered care, which is, I think, what really differentiates us from the historical incumbent model.”

“We have primary care, which can cover anything from preventative care to monitoring of chronic conditions,” Douillet Guzmán says.

FOLX Health will also help refer patients to other providers for services the platform doesn’t provide. The company will also help direct patients to get assistance with legal services.

The vast majority of FOLX Health's providers identify as bisexual, gay, lesbian, pansexual, or queer. The company employs all of its clinicians. “We are not a matchmaking service,” she says.

Most of FOLX Health’s members didn’t have access to an affirming provider previously, she says.

“Some just kind of suffered through to get the care that they needed, but 40% of our members actively avoided seeking medical care because of either fear of or experiencing discrimination,” Douillet Guzmán says.

FOLX Health has seen strong demand for behavioral healthcare, and the company is aiming to meet that demand while taking a thoughtful approach to its growth.

The company is offering talk therapy in nine states.

“Within weeks of launching a provider in a given state, we fill their panel, because it is an area where people are really struggling to find that safe care,” she says.

While affirming care should be expected in all types of healthcare, it’s particularly important when it comes to therapy and mental health services.

“It's such a vulnerable space for folks, and so it's really important that they find someone that they feel understands them and their needs, and can provide that supportive environment,” Douillet Guzmán says.

Concerns about Trump

Trump will return to the Oval Office Monday, and that’s been a source of worry for many in the LGBTQIA community, she says.

“I think the biggest thing is just the cultural shift,” Douillet Guzmán says.

Douillet Guzmán says she’s worried about the spread of misinformation about the community.

“President Trump and his team have decided to create a wedge around trans healthcare in particular, and they're doing it with a reliance on just complete and utter misinformation,” Douillet Guzmán says.

“And I think that creates an umbrella effect where, if people aren't committed to exploring and building an informed understanding, they will take this administration's word for certain things and build their view around that,” she continues. “And so I'm deeply worried about that. I think it is very dangerous to have an uninformed populace, and actually, worse than that, a misinformed populace.”

Some hospitals and their staff have endured harassment and even threats for providing gender-affirming care to patients. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation released a report in 2022 that found 24 hospitals and healthcare providers were targeted in coordinated online harassment campaigns. Some providers curbed services when funding was threatened.

Douillet Guzmán is worried about the prospect of restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors.

“I think about parents that I know who are furiously figuring out how they can retain their children's medical care in light of a Trump presidency and, you know, I think that puts the onus on the most marginalized among us,” she says.

Looking ahead

While Douillet Guzmán is clearly concerned about the coming months, she says she’s encouraged by the growth of FOLX Health.

“We're steadily adding states every month, and so I'm really excited about that,” she says. “I think it's going to be more important than ever before to have access to high-quality, affirming, expert mental healthcare, particularly as we look at this new administration.”She also says she’s excited by the fact that her vision to improve care for the LGBTQIA+ community is being realized.

“When we were founded, we had this hypothesis that you could take a community-centered approach to healthcare and have it be whole person and patient-centered, and it would drive improved outcomes,” she says. “And I continue to be really energized by the fact that that is exactly the model that we've built, and it's working.”

Even with the worries she has for what’s to come, she still exudes optimism.

“I don't spend most of my days feeling dark and depressed,” she says. “I spend most of my days feeling hopeful and grateful that I get to do this work and that I get to do it for this community.”

Douillet Guzmán says she’s motivated by other leaders and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“This is a community that I am constantly inspired by,” she says. “And I think that admiration and inspiration is just going to continue to grow as I see how our community comes together to continue to fight for our rights going forward.”