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Telehealth

Nicole Ortiz

Healthcare Brew delivers the latest news and trends in healthcare.

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Serena Williams is known as many things. The GOAT in tennis. An Olympic gold medalist. A storied athlete and mother. And as of recently, an enthusiastic GLP-1 user.

This recently acquired knowledge is due to the fact that Williams was announced as the new “celebrity patient ambassador” for direct-to-consumer telehealth company Ro on Aug. 21. The goal of this multiyear 

 is to “destigmatize weight loss medication,” Saman Rahmanian, co-founder and chief product officer at Ro, told Healthcare Brew.

Williams was a patient first and then wanted to share her story with others, he added. (Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, who’s also the co-founder of Reddit, is an 

“For us, that’s really the dream, when we have a patient who turns into an advocate,” Rahmanian said. “It gives people the permission to take care of their health and see if [a certain treatment] is right for them.”

While celebrity endorsements in pharmaceutical ads isn’t exactly a new marketing trick, it’s usually seen when that celebrity has a specific condition the drug is treating. Ro’s campaign felt different, Mae Karwowski, founder and CEO of influencer marketing agency Obviously, told us.

“This just felt like it was made for social [media],” she said. “I think it’s a big leap forward for influencer marketing in the pharma space.”

On top of that, she added, it helps Ro stand out in a crowded (and 

) market. Because it isn’t just the drugmakers that stand to benefit from the booming GLP-1 business—which some 

 forecast could reach $95 billion by 2030, and which made up 98% of 

 ($22.4 billion) in 2024—but also the telehealth companies like Ro that sell them.

GLP-1s are one of Ro’s “largest categories” it can provide to its 3+ million customers, Rahmanian said, though the company also has fertility, hair loss, skin, and hair treatment offerings.

This isn’t the first time Ro has used a celebrity athlete as its GLP-1 ambassador: Former NBA player Charles Barkley was announced as one in April. Both Barkley and Williams have been outspoken about struggling to lose weight, which created more “authenticity,” Rahmanian said.

But this campaign with Williams also “sparked a conversation” about 

 Featuring Williams in such a prominent role in a GLP-1 campaign could create more of a trend within the pharmaceutical industry overall, Karwowski said, though she added many of Obviously’s pharma clients are in the “early days of influencer marketing” still.

“Pharma companies have sort of played small with influencers,” she said.

The biggest hurdle will be ensuring there’s compliance with various laws and regulations, she added. The FDA has an FAQ 

 on what an ad has to say, what qualifies as violating the law, and what’s required for a broadcast TV ad vs. an ad featured only online. (See Hims & Hers’s Super Bowl ad, which lawmakers and healthcare experts 

 earlier this year for allegedly being “misleading.”)

And while platforms like TikTok require any healthcare products to be FDA compliant, there’s also a growing movement of 

 who document their experiences using various GLP-1s. Which again gets to the “authenticity” of it all: Creators can answer viewers’ questions and track their progress along with any symptoms they may feel, all while followers watch and engage, Karwowski said.

“This is in a very public forum with someone jumping on a livestream and you’re chatting with them. So it does, I think, mark a big shift for pharma overall, and you really can’t ignore social media [for pharma marketing] anymore,” she said.

Serena Williams holding a GLP-1 sharp near the underside of her arm

Serena Williams as Ro’s celeb ambassador could mark ‘a big shift’ in pharma advertising

Pharma isn’t known for big-name celebrity appearances, but Ro’s approach could change the landscape.

illustrated headshot of caroline catherman, healthcare brew reporter

Caroline Catherman

Angel Foster only enters the US via Canada, where she’s a professor. She doesn’t drive a car outside Massachusetts. And she doesn’t visit Florida, South Carolina, or other states that ban or restrict abortion.

These are the precautions this MD takes as founder of the Massachusetts Abortion Access Project (the MAP). It’s a service that prescribes and ships abortion medication via telehealth under Massachusetts’s shield law, which protects those physically present in Massachusetts from out-of-state penalties for accessing or assisting with abortion care.

Legal challenges to providing abortions via shield law have popped up over the last few months, but Foster and others 

. Foster envisions a future with even more providers working similarly from other states that have comprehensive shield laws.

“We have been trying to identify folks in those states who are willing to provide [this care], and then work with them to build out a practice so that they don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” Foster said. “They can piggyback on a lot of the things that we’ve learned.”

Twenty-two other states and Washington, DC, currently have shield laws, according to the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. Eight of those—California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington—

 protect telehealth abortion even if the recipient is located in a state where it’s illegal for them to get care.

The Supreme Court struck down constitutional protections for abortion 

. The MAP was founded in September 2023. It serves 2,000 to 2,500 patients a month, 95% of whom are from states with bans and restrictions, Foster said. In 2024, about 10,000 abortions in the US were provided under shield laws each month, according to the nonprofit research organization the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount tracker.

Though not a prescriber herself, Foster still faces a risk of prosecution if she leaves the state of Massachusetts. The MAP’s five prescribers know the risks, too. “I think we all went into working in the shield law space with the expectation that there would be a lawsuit at some point,” Foster said.

Beyond Foster’s practice, telehealth abortions are growing rapidly, making up to 

 by the end of 2024, compared to 19% at the end of 2023 and 7% at the end of 2022, according to #WeCount.

 found that this form of treatment is just as safe and effective as in-person abortion.

No one has been jailed for providing a telehealth abortion to someone in a state where the procedure is banned.

Recently, however, 15 attorneys general from banned states signed a 

“These laws are blatant attempts to interfere with states’ ability to enforce criminal laws within their borders and disrupt our constitutional structure,” they wrote.

 against a New York doctor who allegedly prescribed pills to a minor in the state. So far, New York’s governor has held strong and refused to turn the doctor over for prosecution. This, and the MAP’s close working relationship with the Massachusetts government, gives Foster hope.

“We’re feeling very confident about the ability of the Massachusetts shield law to protect us,” she said.

White pills floating across between two phones with a checkmark on one screen. Credit: Anna Kim

Abortion shield law provider encourages others to follow her lead

Recent laws have challenged the practice, but that isn’t deterring providers.

Maia Anderson

 for the past four years, virtual care platform Current Health is reclaiming its independence.

In a June 24 blog post, company co-founder Christopher McGhee announced plans to return as CEO of the newly autonomous company, which was founded in 2014 and helps health systems move patient care into home settings. Best Buy purchased the company for $400 million in 2021, though neither party disclosed the financial details of the 

McGhee spoke with Healthcare Brew about his plans for Current Health as he takes the helm once again. He told us he wants to focus the company on treating acute and complex patient populations as opposed to long-term chronic condition management, as that’s where he believes it can “most move the needle on outcomes for the patient and cost.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What changes can we expect from Current Health now that you’re an independent company again?

I’m really trying to take us back to our scrappy startup roots. I want us to innovate and build out our product with urgency and deliver the absolute best frontline experience to our clinical users and to our patients. I want to see rapid innovation in what we do, in building our product, and expanding our product.

How do we continue to build out our health monitoring services and clinical team and what that team does?

How do we use more AI and automation to allow these programs to cost-efficiently scale? The world is dramatically different today than the one it was when I sold the company in 2021. The AI technologies that are out have fundamentally changed the game for how some of these services can be done.

How do we orchestrate all of the technology and all of the services that are going on in the home?

Then the fourth one is the business model: How do we make sure that it’s aligned to the way our customer makes money?

You have partnerships with more than 40 health systems, including big names like Mount Sinai and Mass General Brigham. What’s your strategy when it comes to deciding which systems to partner with? 

We want to work with any organization that wants to deliver healthcare in a different way and wants to deliver more of that healthcare in a community or home setting. Some of the most innovative and forward-thinking healthcare organizations are really small, but they’re making dramatic changes to care in their local communities. That can have a pretty dramatic impact on local cost and outcome improvement. We certainly aren’t just looking to partner with the biggest.

In your post announcing your return as CEO, you mentioned you want to build Current into the “world’s largest healthcare organization.” What are your biggest challenges to meeting that goal?

Honestly, just the status quo. When we started Current Health, there wasn’t necessarily a ton of acute and complex care in the home. Hospital-at-home existed, but it didn’t really exist at any scale. Fast-forward nine years, and it’s a seismic shift in the way healthcare is delivered in this country. Now all of the sudden, people are culturally and psychologically ready to deliver more care in the home than they were five, 10 years ago.

But I think the biggest challenge still remains the cultural change around moving from a world that’s very centric around large brick-and-mortar facilities to one where healthcare is delivered in the community and the patient’s own home. How do we get more solid payment models like the waiver, which 

 to be done? It’s a temporary waiver that 

Headshot of Current Health CEO and co-founder Christopher McGhee

Current Health CEO Christopher McGhee talks company plans after separating from Best Buy 

The digital health company is recently single, and Christopher McGhee has big plans. 

Current Health CEO talks company plans after separating from Best Buy 

When you think of direct-to-consumer erectile dysfunction (ED) treatment, you might think of platforms like Hims or Roman. Now GoodRx, perhaps best known for offering prescription drug discounts, wants a piece of the nearly $3 billion ED drug market.

In June, the company announced an ED telehealth treatment service that includes a virtual consult, prescriptions, and “discreet delivery” of medications to most states, starting at $18 per month.

This will be the company’s first-ever “conditions-specific” subscription service. It decided to step into this market after its in-house research found a gap in the ED care market, and plans to leverage brand loyalty and trust in order to grow, Katelyn Pelak, VP and head of product management at GoodRx, told Healthcare Brew.

“We chose ED as our starting point because it represents a high-demand, high-barrier condition where we know we can make a meaningful impact,” Pelak said.

Of 1,332 men surveyed by GoodRx in early 2025, nearly 30% reported ED challenges but only 14% sought treatment. Those who didn’t get treatment cited concerns about cost, side effects, and stigma. A 2024 

 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found a similar result: Of 1,822 men, about 24% said they had ED symptoms but only 8% had ever been diagnosed.

There’s clearly room for this market to grow given how many people go untreated, and GoodRx can capitalize on that, Chris Lew, VP of commercial strategy and innovation at health research and consulting firm Rock Health, told us.

“In my view, it’s really less about competing with existing players in the space for a share of patients that are already being treated [and more about] competing for that pool of untreated patients,” Lew said. “That’s really about raising awareness of treatment options and lowering access barriers for medication like cost, convenience, affordability.”

 Pelak is confident GoodRx can stand apart because it already has such strong recognition with its 30 million consumers annually. Its paid discount and drug delivery subscription program, GoodRx Gold, launched in 2018 and had 680,000 members at the end of Q1 2025.

“We have that trust. We’ve proven we can do it at scale. We’ve proven we can do it in an affordable way for customers,” she said.

Lew echoed this point. GoodRx’s pricing for this model is “highly competitive,” he said. “Given both its broad existing reach with those 30 million consumers and its core business…I think that could translate in really interesting ways, some of which could be drug price advantages that it can pass on to consumers or lower consumer acquisition cost,” he said.

It’s also a good time to be a direct-to-consumer healthcare brand, he added. The global healthcare e-commerce market was valued at $310 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $614 billion by 2026, according to consulting firm Ernst & Young.

“We’re really seeing a moment in consumer-driven healthcare,” Lew said.

In this photo illustration, the GoodRx Holdings logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.

GoodRx is betting on men’s health with ED subscription service

The brand hopes to reach the 30 million consumers that already use the platform for drug discounts. 

More than 10 years since its 2013 founding, BetterHelp’s cash-only era is finally coming to an end.

Teladoc, the mental health platform’s owner since 2015, announced April 30 it had acquired UpLift, a smaller provider of virtual mental health services with a big advantage: It takes insurance.

As part of this $45 million acquisition ($30 million cash and $15 million in performance-contingent earnout), UpLift will use its existing infrastructure to phase in access to insurance benefits for BetterHelp customers over the next year, Mala Murthy, CFO of Teladoc Health, said during an April 30 earnings call.

The hope is more people will flock to the app now that it takes insurance.

“We believe that access to benefits coverage will lead to significantly higher conversion rates relative to BetterHelp’s cash-pay business, driven by greater affordability,” Murthy said, adding that “many cash-pay users that pause subscriptions cite costs as a primary factor.”

BetterHelp’s Q1 2025 revenue decreased 11% YoY to $239.9 million as the service has shed users, down to 397,000 this quarter compared to 415,000 in Q1 2024.

Teladoc’s total Q1 revenue was $629.4 million, down YoY by 3% with a net loss per share of $0.53.

Though a therapy session covered by insurance will likely bring in less than a session done through cash, the projected increase in users and visits “should more than offset” that, Murthy said.

UpLift also has a network of 1,500 mental health professionals and offers psychiatry and medication management, according to a Teladoc press release.

Teladoc’s struggle comes as telehealth companies across the board see 

 further and further from pandemic peaks.

Healthcare analytics group Trilliant Health 

 that quarterly telehealth visits fell from a record 60+ million in 2020 to fewer than 30 million in Q3 2023. But behavioral health has proved to be the most resilient form of virtual care, Allison Oakes, Trilliant Health’s executive director of research, told Healthcare Brew via email, making up more than 60% of telehealth visits in 2023. Insurance coverage could make it even more common.

“Just offering telehealth-enabled mental health care isn’t enough. It is also important that patients are able to access that care within the context of their insurance and that it is affordable,” she said.

a Teladoc logo seen on a smartphone screen and in the background.

Teladoc bets $30m that insurance coverage can save BetterHelp

The company hopes its acquisition of UpLift could mark a turning point for the virtual mental health care platform. 

Pharma giant Novo Nordisk and telehealth company Hims & Hers announced April 29 a partnership to sell Wegovy, Novo’s GLP-1 approved to treat obesity, directly to consumers.

It’s a bit of an unlikely alliance given that Hims & Hers 

 a compounded version of semaglutide (the active ingredient in Wegovy and Novo’s Ozempic, its GLP-1 approved for Type 2 diabetes) since May 2024, and Novo 

 more than 100 lawsuits against companies doing just that.

 Starting this week, customers can access NovoCare Pharmacy, a direct-to-consumer platform the pharma company 

 at the beginning of March, on the Hims & Hers website, according to a company press release.

There, patients can purchase any dose of Wegovy, which is bundled with a Hims & Hers membership plan that gives them access to “24/7 care, ongoing clinical support, and nutrition guidance” starting at $599 per month, the release stated.

Hims & Hers execs said in the release the company plans to continue offering its other weight loss products, including oral weight loss pills and nutrition kits.

 about its opposition to companies selling compounded versions of its GLP-1.

The FDA allows pharmacies to make compounded versions of brand-name drugs, which are composed of the same ingredients, when the branded drug is in shortage. But the FDA doesn’t currently approve the compounded version, which Novo argues poses risks to patient safety.

 says it’s “deeply concerned about companies promoting and selling compounded, non-FDA-approved, or knock-off ‘semaglutide’ and sources spreading misinformation about GLP-1s to the public.”

 (which has since been taken down) said telehealth providers may be conducting insufficient clinical evaluations before prescribing patients semaglutide, and emphasized the company “is not directly supplying semaglutide to any telehealth providers.”

 from health experts and lawmakers in February for a Super Bowl ad that promoted its compounded semaglutide without disclosing the side effects of the drug.

Despite the friction, the partnership could be mutually beneficial.

With prescriptions for Wegovy on the decline, sales have also slowed, increasing around 15% between Q3 and Q4 2024 compared to 48% between Q2 and Q3 2024. And the company is facing increasing competition from rival Eli Lilly as the two 

Hims & Hers will no longer be able to sell compounded semaglutide as of May 22 after the FDA 

 the drug is no longer in shortage. The company’s revenue has skyrocketed since it began selling compounded GLP-1s, from $271.9 million in 2021 to $1.5 billion in 2024.

And the two companies hinted that Wegovy is just the start of their partnership.

David Moore, Novo’s EVP of US operations, said in the press release the companies are “developing a roadmap” to combine Novo’s medications with Hims & Hers’s ability to deliver care at scale to improve chronic disease outcomes more affordably.

Novo Nordisk, Hims & Hers partner to sell Wegovy 

The telehealth provider has sold compounded versions of Novo’s GLP-1 since 2022. 

If you can believe it, it’s already been half a decade since the WHO 

Since then, more than 1.2 million people in the US and 7 million people globally have died from the virus, according to CDC and WHO estimates. And while the Department of Health and Human Services 

 the public health emergency over on May 11, 2023, hundreds of people in the US still die from the virus each week, the CDC’s 

For the five-year anniversary of the pandemic’s beginning, executives from across healthcare shared with Healthcare Brew how the public health crisis reshaped their sector of the industry, the lessons they learned from it, and how they’d respond if a similar crisis happens again.

Joan Fallon, founder and CEO of Curemark, a clinical-stage biopharma company that focuses on neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders, said the pandemic changed pharma by slowing down research and development.

“For example, when we would send a sample for testing, what normally took two to three weeks to complete took five to seven weeks,” she said. “Protocols changed, staffing was minimal, and the large industrial labs had new precautions and new rules to follow. This really slowed everything down.”

Desiree Gandrup-Dupre, SVP of information technology and care delivery technology services at Oakland, California-based Kaiser Permanente, told Healthcare Brew a big change the health system has seen is that patients are more willing to 

“Patients have embraced telehealth as an integral part of their care but not a replacement for in-person care,” Gandrup-Dupre said.

Today, more than 31% of Kaiser’s ambulatory care visits are done via telehealth, she added.

Brendan Carr, CEO of New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System, echoed the importance of incorporating technology into patient care, saying Covid “highlighted the need for healthcare delivery to modernize.”

“The office visits and hospitalization model is dated. A massive disruption will happen over the next decade,” Carr said.

Sandra Lindsay, VP of public health advocacy at New York-based Northwell Health (and the 

 in the US to get a Covid vaccine), told Healthcare Brew the pandemic highlighted the need to build public trust in the healthcare system through transparency.

It also “laid bare the deep inequities that exist across our communities, making it clear that we cannot achieve better health for all without addressing the 

Florian Otto, co-founder and CEO of health tech company Cedar, said he learned the importance of flexibility and meeting patients where they are, whether that’s through virtual or in-person channels.

“There’s much more movement right now…in terms of [patients’] financial situations, where they live. They’re much more willing right now to switch providers,” Otto said. “How to engage with each patient is way more important,” he added, as patients change jobs and health plans more often today than in the past.

If a similar crisis were to happen in the future, John D’Angelo—EVP, market president, and chief of integrated operations at Northwell—said the first step the health system would take is to make sure there’s strong communication between its hospitals, labs, and public health partners.

Lindsay said she’d place an even greater emphasis on health equity and making sure resources reach underserved communities. (Vaccine rollout to marginalized communities and rural areas was complicated due in part to patient hesitancy and distrust in facilities.)

“If we are to honor the lives lost and the sacrifices made during the Covid pandemic, we must commit to learning from those painful lessons—not just in theory, but in practice,” she said. “This moment in history taught us what’s possible when we come together, and we must carry that forward with urgency and intention.”

sign outside the emergency room telling visitors that masks are required to enter Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills