The bullish story here is that a new opportunity has emerged, especially in the Medicare Advantage market, for a new business model that serves patients better. It uses an integrated approach with value-based incentives in order to enable a better customer experience, and to save on costs by preventing hospitalizations.

These technological offerings can address unmet health-care needs by circumventing traditional intermediaries, such as payers (eg, insurance companies and governments), clinicians, employers, and the pharmaceutical industry, and provide patients with direct access to health-related data and services. Like other industries that empower consumers... See more

Using the Rock Health Digital Database,1 which profiles digital health companies based in the USA that received more than $2 million in publicly disclosed funding from 2011 to 2019, we found that 252 (21%) of 1214 digital health companies pursued a direct-to-consumer strategy.

Digital therapeutics – software that reinforces or replaces clinical therapies altogether – limit the need for live interactions with providers, and lower the barriers to accessing treatment.