Helpful Has Closed. Where That Support Exists Now
Helpful shut down on 31 December 2025. If you were using it to keep track of a parent’s insurance coverage, or for the therapy sessions it provided, this page explains what happened and where that help actually exists now — including an honest account of the parts RelayNest does not replace.
What happened
Helpful was a Cambridge, Massachusetts company founded in 2022. It raised a $7.5m seed round in 2023 and built something genuinely unusual: an app that pulled a loved one’s insurance coverage details into one place, alongside medical records, condition-specific education and mental health support for the caregiver.
The coverage part was hard in a way most people never see. There is no API for a person’s insurance benefits, so the company resorted to programmatically scraping insurers’ websites to assemble the picture. It was free to families because health plans paid for it; partners included VNS Health.
On announcing the closure, founder Wes Donohoe wrote that his “most fundamental job as a founder was to keep the company alive,” and that he “wasn’t able to do that.” Over three years the company said it had helped thousands of families understand coverage and delivered tens of thousands of therapy sessions.
Get your information out, if you still can
We could not find a published data-export route for Helpful. If you still have access, save anything you need now rather than later. Failing that, the underlying records exist elsewhere: your insurer can supply coverage and claims details, and a pharmacy will print a dispensing history on request.
Where that help actually exists now
Helpful did two quite different jobs. Neither is replaced by a care-coordination app, so here is the honest routing:
| If you used Helpful for… | Go here instead |
|---|---|
| Understanding Medicare coverage | Your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) — free, unbiased, one-to-one counselling in every state, at shiphelp.org. This is the service Helpful was, in effect, productising. |
| Benefits, transport, meals, respite | Your Area Agency on Aging, via the Eldercare Locator on 1-800-677-1116. See our guide to finding and using your Area Agency on Aging. |
| Therapy and caregiver mental health | Your own doctor, your employer’s EAP if you have one, and the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 helpline on 1-800-272-3900 for dementia-related strain. In crisis, call or text 988. |
| Keeping medical records in one place | Your health system’s patient portal, plus a written medication list you control — our free medication list tool makes one you can print. |
| Coordinating the family around all of it | RelayNest, below. |
Where RelayNest fits — and where it does not
RelayNest does not do insurance or therapy
It has no coverage lookup, no benefits navigation, no claims help and no therapy. If those were why you used Helpful, RelayNest does not replace it, and the table above is the more useful part of this page.
What it does is the other half: one shared workspace where a family tracks medications, appointments, tasks and warning signs together, with the changes a hospital made flagged automatically.
| What you need | Helpful | RelayNest |
|---|---|---|
| Insurance coverage in one place | Yes | No |
| Therapy and mental health support | Yes | No |
| Condition-specific education | Yes | Free guides |
| Shared medication list for the family | No | Yes |
| Flags what hospital started, stopped or changed | No | Yes |
| Appointments, tasks, warning signs | No | Yes |
| Roles, so a sibling can view but not edit | No | Yes |
| Who pays | Health plans | Nobody — it is free |
| Still operating | Closed 31 Dec 2025 | Yes |
One thing worth saying plainly, since you have just been through a shutdown: Helpful closed because the business model underneath it did not hold. RelayNest is free because it is run by one developer at very low cost, not because a health plan is quietly funding it. That is a different kind of risk, not an absence of one. Your data is exportable at any time, and the privacy policy sets out what happens to it.
For the coordination half. One shared workspace for a parent’s medications, appointments and tasks, with hospital changes flagged automatically. Free for the whole care circle, no subscription.
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Common questions
Is the Helpful app shutting down?
It has already closed. Helpful ceased operations on 31 December 2025, having announced the wind-down earlier that year. The company was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2022 and provided insurance navigation and mental health support to family caregivers.
What is the best free alternative to Helpful?
It depends which half you used. For understanding Medicare coverage, the State Health Insurance Assistance Program offers free one-to-one counselling in every state. For benefits, transport and respite, your Area Agency on Aging via the Eldercare Locator on 1-800-677-1116. No single app replaces both, and any that claims to is overselling.
Can I get my data out of Helpful?
We could not find a published export route. If you still have access, save what you need now. The underlying records exist elsewhere regardless: insurers can supply coverage and claims details, and pharmacies will print a dispensing history on request.