The room where it happens
Last week, the Rock Health crew hosted a few events in NYC—and from our (only slightly biased!) perspective, the conversations were notably sharp and practical.
On Thursday, the Rock Health Advisory Member Forum brought together leaders from health systems, payers, pharma, and digital health to debate the biggest shifts reshaping healthcare. On AI's role in care pathways, a clinician in the room suggested that the “40% of consumers” who consult a provider after using an AI chatbot aren’t monolithic; some sought care they would have found eventually—where others possibly would have slipped through the cracks.
A CMS official also walked the room through the ACCESS model's payment logic: rates were deliberately set to make technology-enabled care necessary for profitable participation. Enrollment has already significantly exceeded CMS's expectations ahead of the April 1st deadline coming later this week.
On Friday, 100+ digital health founders and CEOs gathered at the NYSE for the 14th annual Digital Health CEO Summit, trading hard-won lessons across a full day of sessions. One panelist's specific tip on commercial strategy: health plans tend to align around the same core objectives, while pharma customers have entirely different priorities. We also heard about a pricing pivot so significant it required changes to federal and state law—a reminder that sometimes the path to fixing your business runs through policy, so treat regulation as part of your commercial strategy instead of a compliance afterthought.
Across both days, the advice that came up most from both early-stage startup leaders and enterprise executives was some version of: make decisions faster than feels comfortable, expect timelines to extend beyond what you first plan for, and be generous with what you know on the way up. Simple in theory. Harder in practice when you're managing a board, a burn rate, and a constantly moving market.
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