Dr. Katie Brown has a patient who used to visit the emergency room every other day. As a parent of children with chronic health issues and behavioral challenges, the mother was struggling to keep up with their needs. Brown connected the woman with Nest Health, an emerging Louisiana-based health car e company, for medical visits and meetings with a social worker and a dietitian. Within six months, Brown says the family’s ER visits were reduced by half. Brown is a pediatrician and the Louisiana market medical director for Nest Health, which provides in-home, whole-family care to underserved families. Health care is available at no additional cost to those covered by participating Medicaid-managed health plans, according to Nest. In 2025, Fast Company named Nest to its “World Changing Ideas” and “Most Innovative Healthcare Companies” lists. The company is quickly scaling, targeting markets with high emergency room utilization and populations with limited access to primary care. Nest is betting that reducing avoidable hospital visits can quickly translate into measurable cost improvements—and ease strain on health systems. The model delivers prenatal, postnatal, pediatric and family care at a patient’s residence, along with mental health resources such as crisis intervention and substance use support. “There is no clinic,” explains Dr. Rebekah Gee, Nest’s CEO and co-founder. “We come to you in your safe space.” Gee, a New Orleans obstetrician/gynecologist, co-founded Nest Health in 2021. She wanted to build a program that would provide better medical support to under-resourced parents. She drew from her experiences as former secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health, where she led the expansion of Medicaid. She also pulled from her role as a mother to five children. She recalls what a process it was to take her then-newborns—and herself—to the doctor after she had twins: Loading her babies into a car, bringing them to a medical facility, risking that they might get sick from exposure to ill patients. She can empathize with mothers who are reluctant to visit a doctor’s office. “With Nest, you don’t have to pack up your baby. We help you with lactation in the same room where your own equipment is,” she says. “We can look at where your baby’s sleeping. We can look at the home environment.” Nest has accumulated more than $50 million in funding and grown to a staff of 71. What was a modest patient base back in 2023 has blossomed to 12,000 patients across the Capital Region and Greater New Orleans today. Read the full story, and check out the full Trends in Health Care package from this month’s Business Report. Send comments to [email protected]. ...read more read less