Loula

Loula is a platform that connects California families with insurance-covered doula care and handles the billing and credentialing work behind it. Families use Loula to find and book a doula for pregnancy, labor and delivery, postpartum recovery, lactation support, or care through a pregnancy loss such as miscarriage or abortion, with no out-of-pocket cost when their plan is covered and no referral required for most plans. On the provider side, Loula is also a network and software platform for independent doulas: it manages credentialing with insurance plans, verifies client eligibility, processes claims, and pays doulas twice a month even when a health plan's payment is delayed or denied. Doulas complete a single application to get credentialed across multiple insurance plans, with onboarding typically taking 8 to 12 weeks. The service currently operates only in California and works with more than a dozen insurance partners, including Medi-Cal, Kaiser Permanente, Health Net, Anthem Blue Cross, and L.A. Care. Loula reports supporting more than 2,000 families across over 16,000 completed doula visits, and cites lower rates of C-section and preterm birth among clients who received doula support. Its usefulness is currently limited to residents of California and to health plans it has been credentialed with. Founding year is not stated on the site.