CSU’s Ties with TimelyCare Raise Red Flags for Student Mental Health

Two weeks ago, we raised alarms over CSU management’s strange fixation on TimelyCare and their push to enter into a systemwide contract with the private, for-profit telehealth provider. 

Since then, management has left a trail of unanswered questions, leaving us to wonder why they are fighting so hard to outsource our counseling services to a questionable third-party business. What is management not telling us? 

A Mysterious Push to Outsource Counseling Services 

In response to a potential violation, and mirroring our current stage in the collective bargaining process—CFA and CSU management will go to factfinding in late October over management’s attempt to outsource counselor faculty work. The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) has also issued a complaint alleging that CSU management bargained in bad faith by refusing to consider alternatives to TimelyCare for after-hours care. 

For context, TimelyCare, formerly known as TimelyMD, already made its way onto two of our campuses (i.e., Sacramento State and Cal Poly Humboldt) via temporary contracts. After winning a settlement for our counselors and students, the TimelyCare contracts were stunted, but continue to exist. At Sacramento State, for instance, the telehealth provider now provides services similar to Protocall, a well-established, ethical company that serves our campus communities. 

What management is trying to do at this time, however, is form a very rare systemwide contract with TimelyCare to provide Protocall services and after-hours care, despite Protocall services already being available. 

“By doing so, management would essentially replace all of the Protocall services and after-hours care available on our campuses and offer TimelyCare instead,” said Dr. Ian Wallace, CFA Maritime member and counselor faculty. “This wouldn’t just infringe upon crisis services, but counseling services as well.” 

However, the problem extends beyond just the outsourcing of jobs. As Wallace explains, TimelyCare’s business model cannot foster strong relationships nor a sense of community in the same way that counselor faculty can. 

“The problem with TimelyCare is that it’s completely telehealth,” he said. “They’re all gig workers, so they have structural problems that prevent the building of relationships and are unable to offer prevention the same way counselor faculty can. 

Alternatives Already Exist 

Rather than outsourcing jobs, Wallace says there are other solutions, like the pilot after-hour services program being developed by the director of Counseling & Psychological Services at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.  

Management can also shift their attention to addressing the shortage of counselor faculty, including remote counselor faculty, and ensure that every counseling center offers after-hour services. This strategy would actually address underlying issues of understaffing and would bring more funding to the counseling centers. 

The current funding structure also raises additional concerns. Counseling services and health services are funded by student health fees, while police services are funded by the state, said Wallace. Moreover, the campus police departments have budgets at least four times the size of the counseling centers’ budgets, and much of it is going towards weapons. For Wallace, the decision to use state funds to fund the police but not do the same with counseling and health services shows where management’s priorities lie. 

A Very Expensive Contract with No Competitive Bids 

But what is perhaps most perplexing is that management’s decision to contract out TimelyCare—to everyone’s surprise—is not about cutting costs. In fact, the figures show that a systemwide contract with TimelyCare would cost about three to four times as much as Protocall. 

So, if TimelyCare is significantly more expensive than Protocall, then management must have a really good reason to make the switch, right? Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear so. 

Management’s only argument is that TimelyCare offers video-based service, which Protocall lacks, and they assert that students want their counseling done over video rather than phone. 

But even if this claim were true, something else doesn’t add up. Wallace points out that management has never sought a Request for Proposals (RFP) from other competing bids like they normally would do, and that they refuse to do so. In other words, they’ve never even bothered to look at competing services to compare prices, quality, qualifications, and so on. Instead, they claim they don’t need to do an RFP to secure a systemwide contract since they already have a couple of existing campus contracts with TimelyCare. 

A Misleading Narrative 

Management has also tried to use mental health needs of CSU students to justify the TimelyCare takeover. 

In March 2026, Drs. Dilcie Perez and Carolyn O’Keefe from the Committee on Educational Policy (a standing committee of the CSU Board of Trustees) were invited to give a presentation before the trustees, where they asserted that CSU students have suicidal ideations at rates “double the national average.” They then emphasized that this system-level crisis needed to be resolved, and that this information supported pursuing a systemwide contract with TimelyCare. 

But as explained in a letter from CFA’s Counselors Committee, Perez and O’Keefe’s presentation was grossly inaccurate and misleading. The jarring and swift transition from this crisis narrative to a desperate plea for TimelyCare on our campuses couldn’t be more obvious. 

“It was completely bogus,” Wallace exclaimed. “I know the numbers and that is not the case, so we sent a message to all CFA chapters outlining how the actual rate of suicidal ideation is comparable to the national average and may even be lower.”  

Intentionally absent from their presentation was all of the work that counselor faculty and counseling center directors were doing to improve after-hours mental health response and mutual aid support. Instead, management tried to showcase TimelyCare as the savior of our students’ mental health concerns. 

Wallace says counselors are still baffled over why management is so determined to secure TimelyCare and why they refuse to conduct a competitive bidding process. 

“Is there some quid pro quo?” asked Wallace. “Are there kickbacks happening? We can only speculate, because there’s a missing puzzle piece, and we don’t know what it is.” 

Ultimately, Wallace, along with CFA’s Counselors Committee, views management’s unwavering allegiance to TimelyCare—as opposed to its own counselor faculty—as a detriment to the mental health crisis response.  

“The provision of quality mental health care is about building relationships, which are so underutilized by outsourced companies like TimelyCare,” Wallace said. “It’s not just TimelyCare, but many third-party companies come in and promise a lot of things, and the truth is that they underperform and rarely meet expectations.”