Exposed: Cerebral

Cerebral is a telehealth mental health startup that rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic by offering online psychiatric consultations and prescriptions for controlled substances including stimulants and anti-anxiety medications. The company became the subject of a DEA investigation in 2022 after reports that its clinicians were over-prescribing Adderall and other Schedule II controlled substances through brief video consultations with minimal clinical oversight. Internal documents revealed a corporate culture that pressured clinicians to prescribe medications quickly to boost patient retention and subscription renewals. In a devastating privacy violation, Cerebral admitted to sharing sensitive mental health data, including therapy session details, psychiatric diagnoses, and prescription information, with advertising platforms including Meta, Google, TikTok, and Snapchat through tracking pixels embedded in its platform. The company disclosed that this data sharing affected approximately 3.1 million patients who trusted the platform with their most intimate health concerns. The FTC filed a complaint alleging Cerebral violated its privacy promises and the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act. Former employees described a chaotic environment where patient records were accessible to administrative staff without clinical roles, prescribers were assigned unsustainable patient loads of 30+ daily consultations, and quality control measures were virtually nonexistent.