By Aidan Sowa, CEO and Founder, Frontier Industries | October 2026
In 1847, physicians in London debated whether washing hands belonged in serious medicine at all. The argument sounds absurd now. It was not absurd then, because proof had not yet beaten habit. Health technology still runs on that same contest, only faster and with regulators watching. This guide tests agencies against the proof burden your buyers already apply. Money is returning, but only to companies that can show evidence. In health, attention without proof is a liability wearing a launch date.
14.2 billion dollars: United States digital health funding in 2025 (Rock Health, 2026) 1.5 million dollars: civil penalty paid by GoodRx in the first Health Breach Notification Rule action (Federal Trade Commission, 2023) 80 percent: physicians using telehealth visits in 2022, up from 14 percent in 2016 (American Medical Association, 2022)
I Discrimen
A healthtech agency sells proof under regulation, not attention in a feed
The distinction is legal before it is creative.
Most technology public relations trades in novelty. A new feature, a faster workflow, a cleaner dashboard. HealthTech trades in permission. Your product touches bodies, records, diagnoses and payment, and every sentence you publish sits inside that permission or outside it.
An agency that treats a hospital platform like a consumer app will eventually write a claim you cannot defend. The sentence will sound harmless in a pitch meeting. It will read very differently in a regulator letter or a chief information officer review.
Proof is the product. The story is only its packaging.
Readers who want the wider map of sector guides can start with the industry resources index and then return here for the health specific test.
II Machina
The mechanism is simple: a claim travels until it meets a rule that stops it
Every headline runs a gauntlet, whether you plan for it or not.
First comes the Food and Drug Administration line. The FDA Digital Health Center of Excellence, established in September 2020 inside the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, coordinates how software, mobile medical applications and artificial intelligence enabled devices are reviewed (Food and Drug Administration, 2020). If your software is intended to diagnose, treat or prevent disease, it can fall inside device regulation. If it sits in general wellness, it may sit outside. Your agency must know which side of that line each claim lives on, sentence by sentence.
Second comes privacy law, in two layers. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act covers health plans, clearinghouses and most providers, plus their business associates, and the Office for Civil Rights enforces it (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). Many consumer health apps fall outside HIPAA entirely. They do not fall outside the law. The Federal Trade Commission fills that gap with the FTC Act and the Health Breach Notification Rule.
Third comes the buyer. A clinician asks whether the evidence survives a journal club. A compliance officer asks whether the evidence survives an audit. Your agency writes for both readers at once, or it writes for neither.
A claim is a promise with a regulator as a silent coauthor.
III Exemplum
GoodRx shows what happens when marketing language and data practice part company
One named case teaches more than a shelf of media training decks.
In February 2023, the FTC brought its first ever enforcement action under the Health Breach Notification Rule against GoodRx (Federal Trade Commission, 2023). The agency alleged that the company shared personal health information, including medications and health conditions, with Facebook, Google and other advertising firms without telling users, despite privacy promises to the contrary. GoodRx paid a 1.5 million dollar civil penalty and accepted a ban on sharing health data for advertising.
Three months later the pattern repeated. The FTC settled with Easy Healthcare, maker of the Premom fertility app, over sharing of sensitive health data with third parties including analytics firms, again after promises that health information would not be sold or shared for advertising (Promise Legal, 2023). BetterHelp, the online therapy service, paid 7.8 million dollars and accepted a ban on sharing health data for advertising after the FTC alleged it shared data with Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo and Pinterest despite repeated privacy promises (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 2023).
None of these stories began as a public relations failure. Each began as a gap between a sentence in a privacy policy and a pixel on a page. The press coverage simply made the gap public.
Trust breaks at the seam between the promise and the pixel.
An agency worth hiring asks to see the data map before it asks to see the messaging deck. If it never asks, you have learned the most important thing about it.
IV Damnum
The cost of a careless campaign is measured in bans and refunds, not in missed clips
Price the failure correctly and the retainer debate changes.
The direct costs are now on the public record. GoodRx paid 1.5 million dollars (Federal Trade Commission, 2023). BetterHelp paid 7.8 million dollars, structured as partial refunds to consumers whose data was shared (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 2023). Both orders carried something more expensive than money: a prohibition on sharing health data for advertising. A company can recover from a fine in a quarter. It rebuilds an advertising model over years.
The indirect costs compound quietly. Hospital procurement teams run vendor risk reviews, and an enforcement headline becomes a permanent line in that review. Payers ask harder questions. Clinical champions, who stake internal reputation on a pilot, withdraw when the vendor becomes a compliance conversation instead of a care conversation.
Then there is the correction cost. A withdrawn claim does not disappear. It lives in screenshots, in competitor decks and in the first page of search results that a diligence team reads before a funding call.
A fine is a receipt. A ban is a sentence.
Hire for the agency that lowers this exposure, not for the agency with the longest reporter list in consumer media. The detailed breakdown of what a regulated campaign should include sits in the public relations services overview, and health buyers should read any agency offer against it.
V Variabile
Clinical evidence is the controlling variable, and everything else is decoration around it
One factor decides whether coverage helps you sell. It is not reach.
Physicians adopted digital tools at speed when the tools proved useful in care. The share of physicians using telehealth visits rose from 14 percent in 2016 to 80 percent in 2022, and remote monitoring use rose from 12 percent to 30 percent over the same period (American Medical Association, 2022). Adoption followed utility and workflow fit, not publicity volume. That sequence matters for how you brief an agency.
Ask any candidate agency a direct question: show me how you would turn our study, our validation or our outcomes data into the lead of a pitch. A strong agency starts with study design, population, endpoint and limitation. A weak agency starts with a superlative. Superlatives are what regulators underline.
Evidence also sets your calendar. A peer reviewed publication, a conference abstract and a clearance milestone each carry different claim rights. An agency that plans announcements around those milestones, in that order, protects you. An agency that plans announcements around funding dates alone will pressure you to say more than the evidence allows.
Evidence is the only headline a clinician cannot argue with twice.
VI Segmenta
You sell to two keys on one ring: the economic buyer and the clinical champion
Segment the audience wrong and even accurate coverage lands in the wrong inbox.
The first key is institutional. Hospital chief information officers, chief medical information officers, procurement leads and compliance counsel care about integration, security review, uptime and contract risk. They read trade coverage in Fierce Healthcare and Becker Hospital Review, and they ask whether a vendor will survive diligence.
The second key is clinical. A department chair, a nursing lead or a respected physician user cares about minutes saved, errors avoided and patients helped. Clinicians lend the internal credibility that no press release can manufacture. Without a champion, pilots stall in committee. Without the institutional buyer, pilots never start.
The third audience is the patient, and patients now arrive pre warned. Years of data sharing headlines taught consumers to read privacy policies as contracts, because regulators treat them that way. Patient facing copy therefore needs plainer language and fewer adjectives than founder instinct suggests.
Two keys, one door. Turn only one and the door stays shut.
Compare this two key structure with a neighbouring sector in the guide to choosing a PR agency for PropTech, where the buyer ring is wider and the regulator is quieter, and the difference in agency skill becomes obvious.
| Agency type | Strength in HealthTech | Trade off to price in |
|---|---|---|
| General technology agency | Fast consumer and business press, strong launch energy | Learns FDA and privacy lines on your account, often after a mistake |
| Healthcare specialist agency | Fluent in clearance language, clinical evidence and trade press | Smaller consumer reach, slower on broad cultural moments |
| Regulatory led communications firm | Superb risk review and crisis discipline | Can flatten every story until little remains worth pitching |
| In house lead plus freelance support | Deep product knowledge and tight claim control | Thin reporter bench and no cover during a crisis week |
VII Occasio
The opening is real: capital returned in 2025, and it rewarded companies that could prove outcomes
Windows in health open on evidence cycles, not on hype cycles.
United States digital health funding reached 14.2 billion dollars in 2025, a 35 percent rise over 10.5 billion dollars in 2024 and the highest total since 2022 (Rock Health, 2026). Deal count fell from 509 to 482, while average deal size rose from 20.7 million dollars to 29.3 million dollars (Rock Health, 2026). Capital concentrated. Fewer companies took larger cheques.
Artificial intelligence took the largest share. Half of all deals in 2025 involved AI enabled companies, and those companies captured 54 percent of total funding (Rock Health, 2026). Five digital health companies completed public listings in 2025 after only two listings across the prior three years (Rock Health, 2026). A market that rewards concentration and public readiness rewards the same trait in communications: a small number of well evidenced stories, told precisely, to the right rooms.
The opening, then, is not to shout louder than 2021. It is to be the company in your category whose claims a diligence team can verify fastest.
When money concentrates, proof concentrates faster.
VIII Aequatio
Specialist press is the equaliser: a small trade title can outrank a famous masthead
Health is one of the few markets where the smaller room decides.
A chief medical officer does not adopt a platform because a general business magazine praised its founder. She adopts it because STAT reported the evidence fairly, because Fierce Healthcare covered the deployment without hype, and because peers at a competing system already use it. Specialist journalists ask specialist questions: trial size, bias controls, integration with the electronic record, reimbursement path. Surviving those questions in print becomes a sales asset your team can forward for a year.
This levels the field for smaller companies. A 40 person firm with one rigorous outcomes study can earn deeper credibility than a unicorn with a lifestyle profile. The agency skill that matters here is translation under interrogation: turning methods sections into answers a sceptical reporter respects, without trimming away the limitations.
Fame impresses investors at dinner. Footnotes close hospital contracts.
Ask candidate agencies which specialist reporters have challenged them, and what the reporter changed in the story. An agency that has never been corrected by a trade journalist has probably never pitched anything with real evidence in it. Background on how a sector specialist team is staffed is set out on the page about the industries team, which is a useful comparison point when you interview any firm.
IX Consilium
The prescription is a scorecard: score claim discipline first, contacts second, creativity third
Choose with a table, not with a showreel.
| Your situation | Choose this agency profile | First proof to demand |
|---|---|---|
| Pre clearance, claims still narrow | Regulatory led or healthcare specialist | A written claim map tied to your current clearance status |
| Selling into hospital systems now | Healthcare specialist with trade press depth | Two hospital buyer references and one placed evidence story |
| Consumer health app, outside HIPAA | Specialist with FTC case fluency | A data map review covering pixels, software kits and ad tools |
| Post enforcement or post incident | Crisis capable specialist firm | A correction and notification plan rehearsed before launch |
| AI enabled, evidence still early | Specialist that leads with limitations | A pitch draft that states study limits in the first page |
Run every finalist through the same five tests. One, a claim audit: hand them three draft sentences, one of which overstates your clearance, and see who flags it. Two, an evidence read: ask them to summarise your best study and name its weakest point. Three, a data question: ask what they would check in your app or site before any campaign. Four, a buyer question: ask them to separate the pitch for a chief information officer from the pitch for a clinical champion. Five, a failure question: ask what they would do in the first four hours after a regulator letter leaked.
An agency that passes all five earns the creative brief. An agency that fails the first three should not receive it, however charming the meeting felt.
Discipline is not the opposite of ambition. In health, discipline is the permit that lets ambition ship.
Frequently asked questions
1. Does HIPAA apply to our health app? It depends on who you serve and how you are contracted. HIPAA covers health plans, clearinghouses, most providers and their business associates (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). Many direct to consumer apps sit outside HIPAA, but the FTC Act and the Health Breach Notification Rule still govern their privacy promises.
2. Can our agency say our product diagnoses a condition if clearance is pending? No. Intended use and clearance status decide what you may claim, and the FDA treats diagnosis and treatment claims as device claims. A competent agency will draft only within your current status and will label pending milestones as pending, in every draft.
3. Which publications should we prioritise first? Start with specialist titles your buyers read, such as STAT and Fierce Healthcare, plus the trade title for your care setting. General business coverage helps fundraising later. Clinical and hospital buyers check specialist coverage first during diligence.
4. What should we check before launching paid promotion? Audit every pixel, software development kit and audience tool against your privacy policy, line by line. The GoodRx, Premom and BetterHelp orders all turned on a gap between promise and practice (Federal Trade Commission, 2023). Close the gap before spending, not after coverage.
5. How much clinical evidence is enough for a launch story? Enough means a defined population, a stated endpoint and an honest limitation, all in the pitch itself. A small rigorous study beats a large vague claim with every clinical reader. If you have no outcomes data yet, pitch workflow and safety process, not results.
6. What does a healthtech agency cost compared with a general agency? Specialist firms usually charge more per month and waste less per quarter. The relevant comparison is exposure avoided: one enforcement order carried a 7.8 million dollar payment for BetterHelp (Electronic Privacy Information Center, 2023). Price the retainer against that downside, not against a cheaper quote.
7. When should we bring the agency into regulatory meetings? Early, and before messaging is locked. An agency that hears clearance language first hand writes safer copy from the first draft. Bringing communications in after legal review only teaches the agency to fear the document instead of understanding it.
How this guide was built
This guide rests on regulator actions, regulator guidance and published funding and adoption research named in the Sources section. Enforcement summaries simplify long legal orders, so read the full order before acting on any single case. Funding totals describe venture activity, not product quality or clinical merit. Adoption surveys report what physicians said they used, not whether outcomes improved. No agency paid for inclusion, and the scorecard reflects the claim and evidence risks set out above rather than any commercial relationship.
Final section: working with Frontier Industries
Frontier Industries runs sector specific public relations for companies whose claims have to survive expert readers, and health is the sector where that discipline matters most. The team structure behind this guide, claim review first and coverage second, is the same structure offered to clients.
To discuss a campaign, use the start an industry campaign page or call 401-219-4207.
Sources
1. https://rockhealth.com/insights/2025-year-end-digital-health-funding-overview-a-tale-of-two-markets/ 2. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/digital-health/jpm26-digital-health-funding-hit-142b-2025-ai-companies-taking-lions-share-dollars 3. https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/digital-health-funding-2025-boosted-ai-rock-health/809449/ 4. https://www.pymnts.com/legal/2023/ftc-goodrx-settle-complaint-around-health-breach-notification-rule/ 5. https://epic.org/ftc-fines-online-therapy-company-betterhelp-7-8-million-for-sharing-health-data/ 6. https://blog.promise.legal/ftc-health-breach-notification-rule-health-apps/ 7. http://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/digital-health-center-excellence 8. https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/digital-health-center-excellence/what-digital-health 9. https://www.hhs.gov/about/agencies/dab/decisions/alj-decisions/2025/alj-cr6674/index.html 10. https://www.techtarget.com/pharmalifesciences/news/366606656/Digital-Health-Tools-Are-Perceived-as-an-Advantage-to-93-of-Physicians