About Dr Chelsey Richardson

DNP, FNP-BC, IFMCP

Dr Chelsey Richardson is a board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and graduate of the University of Washington. She holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and is also an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner (IFMCP) — with advanced training in root-cause, systems-based care.

With nearly two decades in healthcare, Chelsey has cared for patients in hospitals, family practices, walk-in clinics, women’s health centers, and through telemedicine. This breadth of experience shaped a deep respect for conventional medicine while also showing her where a broader, more integrative approach can be valuable.

Her path to functional medicine began long before she knew what to call it.

Growing up, Chelsey watched her grandparents brew kombucha, stock shelves with supplements, and consult a well-worn copy of Whitaker’s Guide to Natural Healing. But she also watched chronic illness affect the people she loved. Her grandmother lived with ulcerative colitis. Her mother developed multiple autoimmune conditions, her sister experienced autoimmunity, and after significant mold exposure, both of her parents struggled with chronic sinus problems.

There were diagnoses and treatments, but there weren’t always satisfying answers for why these patterns kept happening.

Then her own health became part of the story. Chelsey experienced PCOS, persistent acne, gut dysbiosis, low thyroid function, anxiety, and tendon injuries following a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. Conventional medicine offered valuable tools for many of these problems, but she found herself asking bigger questions:

Why were these things happening together? What was driving the patterns underneath them?

Those questions changed the direction of her work.

Beginning in 2018, Chelsey pursued advanced training through the Institute for Functional Medicine, where she found a framework for understanding many of the connections she had been observing for years—between genetics and environment, hormones and metabolism, gut and immune health, nutrition, stress, sleep, and the daily rhythms that shape health.

Once she learned to see health this way, she couldn’t unsee it.

Chelsey completed her IFM certification in 2025. But the deeper transformation was realizing that practicing this way requires more than additional testing or a longer appointment. Meaningful change often requires time, education, partnership, and structured support to help people put what they learn into practice.

Eventually, she reached a crossroads: continue trying to fit this kind of care into a structure that wasn’t designed for it—or create one that was.

That decision became Flourish Functional Health.

Known for her thorough and attentive style, Chelsey takes time to deeply listen and understand each patient’s story. She brings together the best of conventional and functional medicine to identify underlying patterns and create practical, step-by-step plans that fit real life.

At the heart of Flourish is a simple belief: you are designed to flourish. Chelsey’s approach considers the interconnected foundations of health—including nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, digestion, hormones, metabolism, immune health, and environmental influences. She also recognizes that health encompasses more than the physical body and welcomes patients who wish to include faith and spiritual well-being as part of their journey.

Outside of clinical work, Chelsey treasures time with her husband and four children, enjoys the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and finds joy in gardening, working out, and playing soccer. Guided by faith, hope, and a commitment to lifelong learning, she sees her role not simply as treating illness, but as helping people understand their health, equipping them with the tools to move forward, and walking alongside them as they flourish.

Work With Chelsey