Doing More with Less in Digital Health: Scaling What Works
At APhA 2025, I had the chance to speak about a topic that’s been at the heart of my work at MEMOTEXT for over a decade: how we scale digital health beyond pilots—and actually deliver value across systems, providers, and patients.
With shrinking budgets and rising expectations, we’re all being asked to do more with less. That’s especially true in digital health, where solutions must do more than look good on a slide—they need to prove outcomes, fit into workflows, and justify reimbursement.
Check out the slide deck here! 📑
The Holy Trinity of Scalable Digital Health
In the talk, I framed this challenge around what I call the “Holy Trinity” of digital health:
Clinical Efficacy – Does the intervention work? Is it validated?
Workflow Integration – Does it fit into real-world care, or create new friction?
Reimbursement – Is there a viable, sustainable pathway to payment?
Too often, we focus on tech and forget about adoption. Without all three of these pillars in place, digital health programs tend to stall—caught in endless pilot cycles, or worse, shut down altogether.
Real ROI: Case Study in Asthma Adherence
To bring this to life, I shared a recent case study from a partnership with PerformRx and a large regional payer. Together, we deployed a just-in-time adaptive text messaging program to support asthma controller medication adherence.
Here’s what happened:
We identified patients with poor adherence (PDC < 40%) and enrolled them in a personalized digital intervention.
Messaging was tailored using behavioral science and an onboarding questionnaire covering motivation, beliefs, and literacy.
Over 12 months, the program converted 40% of low-adherers to optimal, and improved average PDC from 98.5 to 168.2 days/year—a 70.5% increase in adherence.
These outcomes translate directly to improvements in HEDIS Medication Management for People with Asthma (MMA), STAR ratings, and potential reductions in ER visits—all of which have real financial implications for plans.
Reimbursement Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All
One of the most important takeaways: reimbursement is more flexible than it looks.
Yes, we talked about DTx, CPT codes, and HCPCS, but we also explored alternative models—like tech-enabled services, value-based contracting, and hybrid pathways that make room for innovation without waiting for perfect legislation.
The key is to design with reimbursement in mind from the start. If we can align outcomes with payer priorities early, digital health has a much greater shot at being funded, scaled, and sustained.
What Comes Next
Whether you’re a provider, PBM, or plan, the challenge is the same: how do we ensure that digital tools deliver outcomes and fit into financial and operational models?
At MEMOTEXT, our answer has been to co-create with stakeholders, design around measurable outcomes, and hold our own technology accountable to those results. That’s how we’ve been able to build partnerships that last—and deliver results that matter.
Feel free to download the slides here or discuss any of these frameworks further, feel free to reach out. We’re always open to shared learning—and yes, shared reward.