Norte · by Balestilha

Everything your family needs, in one place you can all reach.

The documents, the medications, the decisions someone already made about their own care — gathered quietly now, while things are calm, so that on the day it matters nobody is searching through a drawer at two in the morning.

Free for your family. Always.
NORTE
Wednesday morning
Dad
Ernesto · Ramsey County, MN
In progress
His application is 4 of 9 sections in. Pick up where you left off.
Mom
Carmen · Ramsey County, MN
Ready
Everything current. Nothing needs you today.
One thing worth doing. You don't have a healthcare directive of your own on file. Ten minutes, and your kids never have to guess.
Elena
Your sister · full access
Sharing
She sees the same thing you do. No forwarding, no catching up.
Home
Circle
Vault
Calendar
Settings
Why this exists

It was built for one family first. Mine.

Both of my parents have dementia. I am the one caring for them. Over three years I learned what nobody tells you in advance: that caring for a parent is mostly paperwork, and that the paperwork lives in nine different places, and that every one of those places asks you to prove all over again who you are and what you are allowed to do.

I learned that a power of attorney means everything at one counter and nothing at the next. That an assessment you cannot schedule yourself can hold up the whole thing for six weeks. That the one document you need is always in the folder you left at the other house. And that doing all of it a second time, for a second parent, is not easier -- almost nothing transfers.

I built Norte because I needed it. Everything in it is there because it was missing on a day that mattered.

Families don't fail at this because they don't care. They fail because the information is scattered and nobody ever gave them the map. Francis Barbosa · founder, Balestilha
The hard part

The worst day to go looking for these papers is the day you need them.

A fall. A diagnosis. A phone call at work. Suddenly someone needs the insurance card, the directive, the list of medications, the name of the cardiologist — and needs them now. Norte's whole purpose is to make sure that day is boring.

What it does

Six things, and they all serve the same afternoon.

Nothing here asks you to set up a system. You add things as you come across them, and Norte keeps track of what it has and what it doesn't.

The Vault

Powers of attorney, directives, insurance cards, IDs, the deed. Photograph them once. Anything carrying a Social Security or licence number stays covered until someone with the right to see it asks.

The Circle

Your sister, the neighbour, the social worker, the attorney. Each sees only their part, and every share you give has a start date and an end date.

Your standing

What you're actually allowed to do, agency by agency. A power of attorney is full authority at one office and none at all at another, and Norte says which is which before you drive there.

The medical page

Conditions, medications, allergies, doctors, the pharmacy. One page a paramedic or an admitting nurse can read in twenty seconds — without a Social Security number anywhere on it.

The calendar

Appointments, renewals, review dates, the assessment the county still hasn't scheduled. Everyone in the circle sees the same one.

The map

Where you are in the whole process and what genuinely comes next — including what's blocked by somebody who isn't you, so you stop blaming yourself for it.

See it working

Eleven screens, in the order a family actually meets them.

Not a video. Tap through it yourself — these are the real screens, drawn from the app's own design. Start at the top and go in order, or jump to whatever you're worried about.

Eleven steps. About two minutes if you read every word.

The part we're strictest about

Most software guesses. Norte tells you when it doesn't know.

Every piece of software you've used in a hospital waiting room is confident. It fills a box, shows a percentage, gives you a number. Most of the time it's guessing, and you can't tell which times.

Norte answers in one of three ways, and it always says which one you're getting. An empty space in Norte means this hasn't been recorded — never you've failed to finish something.

When it knows
"Ramsey County administers his application."
Stated plainly, with where the answer came from.
When it's ambiguous
"Two rules could apply here. Both are shown."
You get the choice, not a coin flip made on your behalf.
When it doesn't know
"Norte doesn't have this for your state yet."
Said out loud, rather than filled in with something plausible.

You do not put a progress bar on a human being.

Norte will tell you a document is missing. It will never score how well you are caring for your mother. Nothing that describes a person's day gets a number, a grade, or a percentage — not on the screen, not in the database, not ever.

Pricing

The family pays little. The professionals pay properly.

A family in the middle of this is not in a position to shop around, and charging them like they are is the wrong business. The attorney, the care manager and the agency have budgets and an expense code. So that is where the money comes from.

Family

Free
Always — for everyone under your roof and everyone you care for
  • Your whole household, not one person
  • The Vault — unlimited documents
  • The medical page and emergency packet
  • Your Circle, with expiring access
  • Two-factor security on every account
Start free

Family Plus

$12 / month
or $110 a year · the whole family, not per person
  • Benefits applications, filled and checked
  • Standing, agency by agency, with citations
  • Does-it-travel checks across state lines
  • Facility research, compared side by side
  • Invite your attorney or social worker in
Start free, upgrade later

Professional

$25 / client / month
Falling as you take on more. Every colleague free.
  • Priced per family you serve, never per seat
  • Add your whole team at no cost
  • Scoped access — only what you were granted
  • Intake that arrives already organised
  • An audit trail on everything you touched
Join the pilot
Your first 10 client families$25 each / month
Clients 11 through 40$19 each / month
Client 41 and beyond$15 each / month
Colleagues, paralegals, assistants — any numberFree

Tiers are marginal: taking on your eleventh family doesn't reprice the first ten. We charge for the families you serve because that is the work — charging you to add a paralegal to a case would only teach you to share one login, which is worse for everybody.

✦ The promise we will not break

We will never paywall a family's own documents. Your records, your emergency packet, and read access to everything you have put in stay available on any plan — including a lapsed one, including one you stopped paying for years ago. A family locked out of the records they are relying on because a card expired is the single worst thing this product could ever do, and it is not going to happen.

Professional access is in a limited pilot. Agency and firm pricing is by conversation. Prices shown are introductory for early families and are held for the life of the account.

For attorneys, care managers and social workers

The intake you wish you got.

You know the first meeting. Ninety minutes reconstructing what the family already knows but cannot lay hands on, and a follow-up list of eleven documents that arrives in four separate emails over three weeks.

When a family arrives on Norte, you get the vault, the medical page, the standing analysis and the timeline — organised, dated, and marked where it is incomplete rather than quietly padded. You see only what that family granted you, for only as long as they granted it, and every time you open something it is written down.

Join the professional pilot See the attorney view

You are never the product

Norte does not sell leads, does not take referral fees from facilities, and does not show a family a placement because someone paid for it. If we ever did, you could not trust a single comparison in here — and neither could they.

Access ends when it said it would

Every grant carries a start and an end. When an engagement closes, your access closes with it, without anyone having to remember. That is as much your protection as the family's.

Things we would rather you heard from us

The parts most companies leave off the website.

How many states are ready?

Two are authored. Zero are published. A state profile does not go live until an elder-law attorney in that state has read it, and we would rather tell you Wyoming isn't ready than guess at Wyoming. The app shows you the real count on the screen where it matters. This is the constraint on the whole product and we are not hiding it.

How many families use it?

One, properly: mine. My father's actual Medicaid application runs on it. That is a small number and a strong signal — nothing in here is a guess about what the problem feels like.

Is it HIPAA compliant?

Not yet, and we know exactly what the question means. Today Norte holds a family's own records, which is not the regulated case. The moment a clinician uses it to exchange information about a patient, that changes — and that needs a lawyer's answer before the first clinician is invited, not after. The encryption and audit work is already built to survive whichever way it lands.

Can Norte tell me what my POA lets me do?

It can tell you what the agencies say, cite where that came from, and show you the document it read. It does not render a legal verdict, and it will say so on the screen. When something turns on a judgement call, that is your attorney's call — Norte's job is to make sure you walk in already knowing the question.

What if we lose your data?

Records are backed up continuously with point-in-time recovery, and the encryption key is retained separately even if everything else is torn down. You can export everything you have put in, at any time, on any plan.

What happens when they die?

It is the ending almost every family reaches, and it is not the end of the need. Estate recovery runs for years afterwards — Minnesota reaches into life estates and payable-on-death accounts — and the executor still needs the vault, the documents and the log of who did what. That is a quieter, cheaper plan, and it is coming.

Chart the course while the seas are calm.

Tell us where to reach you and we'll set your family up. Free, and free is not a trial — it stays free.

Thank you — we have it.

We'll be in touch shortly at the address you gave us. Nothing else is needed from you today.

A person reads every one of these. Norte is early, and we would rather grow slowly and get it right.