RecoveryRachel addresses a deceptively difficult public-health problem: finding a provider who fits a person’s actual needs when the person has the least time, energy or system knowledge to search.
A provider can exist and still be functionally unreachable.
The office may be too far away. The service may not treat the person’s age group. The provider may not accept the person’s insurance. The listing may describe “behavioral-health services” without explaining whether that means counseling, medication management, peer support or substance-use treatment. The telephone number may work, but the program may no longer have capacity. An accessibility need may be essential to the person and invisible in the record.
From the system’s perspective, the service exists. From the person’s perspective, it may as well not.
This is the problem RecoveryOhio asked RingMD to help solve through RecoveryRachel, a statewide digital front door for mental-health and addiction services. The live public experience gives people two ways to begin: browse a directory of providers licensed or certified by the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health, or speak or type with a confidential virtual assistant that asks plain-language questions and helps narrow the search.
RecoveryRachel makes the complexity behind Ohio’s behavioral-health system easier for a person to navigate.
A list is only the start of a pathway
Healthcare directories are usually built as inventories. They organize organizations, addresses, telephone numbers and service categories into searchable records.
That structure serves an administrative purpose. It does not necessarily match the way a person asks for help.
A person may not know whether they need an outpatient program, a psychiatric evaluation, medication-assisted treatment or peer support. They may describe what is happening in ordinary language: “I cannot sleep,” “my teenager is not doing well,” “I need help with alcohol,” or “I just left treatment and need support near home.”
The gap between those descriptions and the system’s categories creates cognitive work. Someone must translate the human need into eligibility rules, provider types, filters and service terminology. Too often, the person in distress is expected to perform that translation alone.
RecoveryRachel was designed to reduce that burden. The public service allows people to search by factors such as location, insurance, specialty and service need. A second route lets a person talk or chat with Rachel, answer a short sequence of questions in their own words and receive relevant provider options.
RecoveryRachel is built to make the next step genuinely easier to take.
Directories decay unless maintenance is part of the product
A directory begins aging the moment it is published.
Providers open and close locations. Programs change. Insurance participation shifts. Telephone numbers are reassigned. Services expand, contract or pause. Staff turnover separates the people who know that a record is wrong from the administrators who can correct it.
Stale data directly impedes care. Every unsuccessful call consumes time and energy, and repeated dead ends teach users that the system cannot be trusted.
We treat data freshness as part of RecoveryRachel’s ongoing operation, not as an occasional cleanup project. The directory receives information from Ohio Department of Behavioral Health licensure records, and licensed providers can sign in to maintain their own listings. When an organization reviews and confirms its profile, RecoveryRachel displays an ‘Information verified by provider’ badge.
For someone searching for care, RecoveryRachel’s provider-verification badge answers a useful question: has this organization reviewed its own listing? It does not promise an open appointment at that exact moment, but it gives the user meaningful context about who has confirmed the information.
That transparent verification model makes the directory easier to trust and use.
Search must reflect the conditions of real life
Location is important, but distance alone does not determine whether care is usable.
Insurance, age, treatment focus, language, accessibility, hours, service modality and other factors can be decisive. A provider ten minutes away may be a worse match than one farther away. A parent searching for a child, a professional helping a client and an adult looking for their own care may begin with different information and require different explanations.
RecoveryRachel’s search tools are designed around these combinations. A person can start with a broad query, use advanced filters or move through conversational guidance. The system can support both a user who knows the exact service sought and someone who knows only what they are experiencing.
We deliberately offer two simple paths. People who prefer filters can browse, while those who want more guidance can talk or chat with Rachel.
This is more than a user-experience preference. Offering multiple paths recognizes that people process information differently—especially under stress, on mobile devices or while helping someone else.
The assistant navigates; it does not diagnose
That focused role lets Rachel reduce search friction while licensed professionals remain responsible for clinical decisions.
RecoveryRachel draws an important boundary. Rachel is designed to help a person find services, not to diagnose a condition, prescribe treatment or replace a licensed professional. It asks plain-language questions that help narrow the provider search and then connects the user to information maintained within the state’s service environment.
Within that clear boundary, Rachel can ask the practical questions that make a large provider directory easier to use.
At RingMD, we use automation to reduce navigation work, make a large directory easier to use and support people who do not know the system’s vocabulary. Qualified people and organizations continue to make the consequential clinical decisions.
The public experience also directs people in immediate crisis to call or text 988. Navigation and crisis response are connected, but they are not interchangeable. A person seeking a therapist next week and a person at imminent risk tonight need different pathways.
That clarity helps each person reach the right next step quickly.
Privacy is part of accessibility
Creating an account can improve personalization, but it can also become a barrier.
Someone may be using a shared device. They may fear stigma. They may be exploring options for a family member and not want to create a permanent profile. They may simply decide that a registration form asks for more effort than they can give in that moment.
RecoveryRachel lets members of the public search without creating an account. Its conversational experience is designed so a person does not need to identify themselves to begin. That low-friction approach is especially important in mental health and addiction care, where the perceived cost of being seen searching can be high.
Low-friction access still rests on security, careful handling of operational data, role-based administration and responsible analytics. Providers need authenticated tools to maintain their information, and State administrators need visibility into whether the service is functioning.
Our standard is simple: collect what the service needs without making personal disclosure the price of entry.
The work behind the front door
RecoveryRachel did not begin with a chatbot placed on top of an existing list.
Our work spans human-centered discovery, portal and data architecture, provider workflows, conversational voice and text navigation, analytics, support and ongoing enhancement. As RingMD’s COO, Varun Arora leads that work across product, data, AI and operations. He works directly with State leaders and service experts so RecoveryOhio’s goals stay connected to the decisions our team makes every day.
We begin by listening to the people who use and maintain the system: members of the public, families, providers and State staff. We then turn what we learn into data rules, provider-maintenance workflows, search and conversational guidance. Analytics help Ohio see what people are looking for, where information is incomplete and where the public experience can improve.
That full operating layer is what keeps RecoveryRachel reliable after launch: governance, update processes, identity controls, support, reporting and the ability to improve the service as people reveal new needs.
RecoveryRachel is live in 2026 and is a nominee for the 2026 NASCIO State IT Recognition Awards. The nomination places the project in a national peer-review process focused on state technology innovation and public impact.
A No-Wrong-Door System That Keeps Learning
For RingMD, ‘no wrong door’ means helping each person reach the best available next step and giving Ohio clearer insight into where the system can improve.
Provider availability, clinical fit and insurance details can change. RecoveryRachel’s results advise users to contact providers and confirm current availability and services.
RecoveryRachel also gives Ohio clearer visibility into system-level challenges such as workforce shortages, transportation, coverage, wait times and regional capacity.
Navigation also turns repeated searches into useful system insight. When people look for the same service in a region and find few viable options, Ohio can see the gap. When provider fields remain incomplete or users repeatedly leave at the same step, our team can focus maintenance and design work where it will matter most.
The result is a stronger public front door: easier navigation for the person seeking help and better visibility for leaders working to strengthen the system.
From provider search to whole-person navigation
Behavioral health rarely exists in isolation from housing, food, transportation, employment, family needs or other social conditions.
RecoveryRachel’s foundation can support connections to broader resources through 211 and other partners. As the service expands, RingMD can apply the same disciplined approach to trusted information, clear handoffs and understandable choices.
That means treating a housing or transportation handoff with the same care as a provider referral: begin with the person’s question, use accountable sources, be clear about what is known and move toward a practical next step.
For RingMD, the project represents a broader direction in public-sector digital health. AI creates value here by helping people translate, organize and navigate. It reduces the distance between “I need help” and “here are the services that fit what I have told you.”
That role is practical and immediately useful.
Success is a next step someone can actually take
A directory can be technically accurate and still fail the person using it. A search can return fifty results and still leave someone without a viable call to make.
We measure success by whether a person can understand the options, narrow them around real constraints, see which information has been provider-verified, reach 988 when the need is urgent and begin without already knowing the system.
RecoveryRachel turns a static directory into a maintained, conversational public service. It makes navigation part of access and removes more of the burden of understanding the system from the person seeking care.
Access begins when trustworthy information, plain language and a workable next step meet the person where they are. That is when the directory stops being another barrier standing between need and care.