Monika Roots, MD, FAPA, is the Co-Founder, President and Chief Medical Officer of Bend Health, a Lyra Health company. Along with her husband Kurt Roots, she launched Bend Health to address the mental health crisis facing today’s kids and teens. As a mother and child and adolescent psychiatrist, Dr. Roots wanted to create a scalable solution that focuses on a whole family approach.
Dr. Roots serves as an assistant adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She previously served as the Chief Medical Officer at Sanvello Health and the Vice President of Health Services at Teladoc Health. She also co-founded CogCubed, a mental health care analytics company focused on developing diagnostic tools for kids, teens, and young adults.
If we gut school-based care, we’re not only closing doors, we’re also deepening the racial and economic inequities that already shape our mental health system. We can’t claim to care about equity in healthcare if we’re willing to strip care from the very places that reach the kids who need it most.