📣 Digital Health Download: August 2026

0:02Welcome to the Heart of Healthcare podcast. I'm Halle Teko. I'm Michael Esquivel. And I'm Steve Krause. And every Monday, we bring you the latest in healthcare innovation as we sit down with entrepreneurs and industry experts. So buckle up and join us as we figure out how to improve healthcare for all.

0:31Hello, listeners, and welcome back to the show. I'm Hallie Tecco. I'm here with my co-host, Michael Esquivel, to bring you the top headlines from the last month in digital health. Hi, Michael. Hey, Hallie. Good to see you. We have a mix of a ton of great stories this month. We're going to talk about OpenAI and ChatGPT, GLP-1 companion product funding, peptides, health insurance and daylight savings. So why don't you get us started? Let's turn to our favorite topic on this podcast, GLP-1s. And specifically, let's talk about GLP-1 companion platforms. So, Hal, you probably saw Rock Health just released its digital health overview for the first half of 2026, and funding, I'm pleased to report, hit$7.4 billion across 244 deals in the first half.

1:25That's up from 6.4 billion in the same period last year. And what's most encouraging, it's a clear continuation of the recovery from the 23-24 slump. So we're on the way up. Mental health continues to hold the top spot, and it's done that for the last seven years running. But weight management and metabolic health platforms came in a strong second, riding that continued GLP-1 wave with companies like E-Med, Nourish, and Midi expanding into the space. I thought GLP-1 prescribing was already pretty saturated. It's interesting to see investors continue to invest. They must think or know that there's room for more GLP-1 prescribers in the space.

2:08Yeah, great question, Hallie. Well, it's actually shifted from just a pure prescribing platform investments into what people are now calling companion ecosystems. So think nutrition support, adherence tracking, lifestyle coaching, all layered around the drug itself. And that's aimed at helping employers and payers get more value out of what they're already spending on these medications. So it's really, really interesting. One of the largest raises, in fact, in this category came from EMED. It's an employer-focused GLP-1 telehealth platform that raised a$200 million, wait for it, Series A, at a valuation of more than$2 billion.

2:44Its model is really interesting because it's not primarily selling direct to consumer. It's working with self-insured employers that are struggling with the rising costs of covering these medications. As you know, Hallie, these employers are facing a really difficult tradeoff. These drugs have proven massive health benefits, but they are extremely expensive, and patients may need to remain on them for the long term. Employers, therefore, are begging, asking, wanting to know which employees are likely to benefit, whether they are staying on treatment, and whether the program is improving health enough to justify that increasingly high cost.

3:19That really creates an opening for platforms that can manage the entire GLP-1 experience rather than simply prescribing the drug. According to Rock Health's report, 64 % of the weight management companies that raised during the first half of 26 had a direct-to-consumer strategy. That's compared to just 29 % of funded digital health companies overall. So there still is this really strong D2C component. But what's really exciting for me is that we're now recognizing it's not just enough to simply prescribe the medication. You've got to layer around it all of the necessary support to get the most benefit from those drugs.

3:58Yeah. Michael, I don't think we can gloss over a$200 million series A. We are in such a crazy time where these companies are growing so fast that the traditional bans for valuation and round size have just completely been thrown out. And$200 million, it's crazy. But yes, I agree with everything you said. And I actually wrote about this last year and I can share my analysis in the show notes, but I really truly believe that GLP-1s are like the moment for digital health. It was really like everything that we've built up in this industry was made for this moment because as you said, they work best and patients have more adherence and more success when they come with support.

4:48everything you mentioned, the nutrition counseling, the tracking, the support. But our current health care system, primary care is just not set up to do that. They don't get paid for that. They don't have the tools for that. They certainly don't have the time for that. And so the folks that I know that have gotten GLP-1s through, let's say, their primary care provider, they don't actually have the same sort of touch points that someone would have if they would get it through an Omada Health or a Noom or a Midi because those platforms have this native digital piece that can do all the wraparound services that our traditional healthcare system just can't do.

5:25So like what good timing for us in digital health. And here I thought we were kind of already pretty saturated and crowded and there continues to be more. So super exciting. Yeah. I can't wait to see how this continues. And more importantly, the health benefits. I mean, when you layer on top of the molecule and drug itself, all of the support, I think we're going to see extraordinary health benefits. And I'm really excited. I'm really excited for the future on this one. What do we got next, Hallie? Well, speaking of peptides, yeah, I mean, we have more talk about peptides. So this story is just developing, so things might change by the time the episode airs.

6:03There's always a few days between when we record and when it airs. But an FDA advisory committee voted last week narrowly to recommend adding six unapproved peptides to the official list of substances compounding pharmacies are allowed to use. Peptides, as we know, have exploded in popularity recently. You and I have talked about this on the show. You know, a lot of longevity experts and wellness influencers really are pushing them, claiming that they can do everything from wound healing to muscle building. I saw something on social media about a peptide that can help give you a tan. What? All of this, so there's really not a ton of rigorous data behind most of them.

6:49Despite this, the vote was split amongst two factions. So we had an RFK-nominated group that some have pointed out have commercial tides to the peptide industry. And this faction voted for the recommendation while the FDA's career scientists unanimously opposed adding all of them. They cited a lack of solid clinical trial data, and in some cases, really not even having an agreed-upon chemical definition of the substance itself. The panel did agree, and they drew a line somewhere. They rejected a seventh peptide called emideltide, proposed for narcolepsy and opioid withdrawal because the safety evidence was just even thinner than the others.

7:36And the last thing I'll note is that this vote is only a recommendation. The FDA still has to formally decide. But if it does go through, it really opens up a legal regulated pathway for this category of substances that's really been operating until now in a very great market. Well, Hallie, great call out here on this topic. The most important distinction here is that adding something to a compounding list does not, in fact, mean the FDA has approved the peptide. I think that's an important distinction here. The FDA approval would mean the drug has gone through a formal review of its safety, effectiveness, manufacturing, and labeling for particular use.

8:15Yeah, except, like, does the average consumer know the difference between something being legally allowed to be compounded versus FDA approved versus FDA cleared? I don't think they do. I mean, consumers are already buying these from China for research purposes only. But I will say that supporters argue that compounding could make it easier to collect data and study these products that are already being used. On the other hand, critics would say that this, again, it makes a false impression that the FDA has somehow endorsed these products because the average consumer doesn't really know the difference.

8:55There's also worry that compounding could accelerate use before we have that evidence on things like dosing, long-term effects, interactions. So I will say it feels a lot like that compounded GLP-1 debate that we had, you know, last year, two years ago, but we don't have that like FDA approved reference drug underneath it. So with compounded Ozempic, there was at least, you know, an FDA approved molecule and a large, large and growing clinical evidence base. Even though the compounded version itself wasn't approved, I think most clinicians, you know, if they trusted the compounder, they trusted that product.

9:33In the case of peptides, the evidence is much, much thinner, and some have never been approved for any medical use in the U.S. And that really matters for digital health because, as we know, these startups can quickly scale things into a mass market consumer product, GLP-1s being a really great example. Everything that we've built, all the infrastructure for online prescribing, subscription billing, influencer marketing, with the compounding pharmacies that they own or they have these deep partnerships with, it's a very powerful distribution model. So while the FDA ultimately, if they follow that committee's recommendation, it is still up in the air.

10:14But I expect that if they do, we will see a big wave of peptide offerings immediately because these startups are just, they're revving up their engines. They're ready to go. Well, you know, certainly it is an exciting moment, but as you said, until we have some more clinical data, it's, you've gotta be working with a physician who really understands the long-term effects, has a trusted distribution source, et cetera. And those aren't easy to find and there's just a lot of sketchy actors out there. So I do worry when I hear about buying off of these websites overseas and you don't know what's in it.

10:51You don't know if it's true to the ingredient list. It is pretty terrifying. So speaking of information, you probably saw this, Hallie, but opening, I just rolled out the ChatGPT Health app to all US users 18 or older. It's on the web, iOS, across every plan tier from free up to the pro. The feature had actually been in testing since January with a limited user group. What's new this week is that it's now open to everyone. and lets users connect Apple health data along with medical records from supported health systems, plus services like One Medical and Function Health. Once it's connected, users can ask ChatGPT to compare their latest labs against older ones, summarize what's changed since their last appointment, or see how their sleep and activity stack up against workouts.

11:37As we've talked about before on this show many, many times, health questions are already one of the most common uses of the ChatGPT app, with people asking around 300 million health-related questions a week. It's crazy, staggering, up from a mere 230 million questions when the feature was first tested in January. The launch announcement does rightfully carry a very important caveat OpenAI has used before. That chat GPT can still get medical questions wrong and isn't meant to replace a doctor. Yes. Well, we have two big OpenAI stories this week. Mine will be next. But I'm curious, did you try it out this last week?

12:19Did you try the product? Yeah, it's funny. I wasn't in the limited user group, but I did get a chance to poke around with that. And yeah, I was able to connect my Apple Health data. And in that, I'm connected to my Aura data, as well as I work with this terrific synchronous asynchronous coaching app called Future. I actually represented that company and we sold it to Autograph, Tom Brady's company a couple of years back. Anyways, I asked it to compare and help me correlate my workouts, my sleep quality, and most interestingly for me of late, HRV. And it's been really fascinating to learn even more about my body.

12:58As you know, Hal, I've been on this health journey and very focused on quantifying as much of my health data. And what I learned is that for me, it really is important, even if I feel good to not do intense strength training workouts on back-to-back days. It really doesn't allow for enough recovery. And in fact, the GPT Health sort of suggested that I do more zone two activity in between. So instead of going back-to-back days, doing hard lifting, I do a hard lifting session. The next day, I do a 30 to 45-minute zone two workout, out, really a good walk, maybe not an intense Peloton bike ride. And so I'm going to start implementing that and see if it does impact my HRV and my overall sleep quality.

13:46So it is really fascinating to see before just connections and correlations that we weren't able to see without these tools. Super, yeah. Yeah, I've been using it nonstop. I'm obsessed. I think it's so much better now that it has the context. I was also able to link it to my medical records through my chart. And I will say what I'm most excited about for AI and consumer health is that we just don't get the time with medical experts in the real world to just continue talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. You know, no one's gaslighting me. I just have the opportunity. At midnight or at 8 a.m., whatever, you know, at any time that's convenient for you.

14:30Absolutely. And actually, Nate was saying that 70 % of their conversations are after hours when you can't even get in touch with a clinician. I'm so excited about all these technologies, this one in particular. What's really interesting, just a side note on HRV, because I'm obsessed with that. You have really good HRV, though. Isn't yours like in the 60s or something? No, no. I mean, when I have a good recovery, sleep and what have you, it will be. but I find myself occasionally, especially when I travel, I suffer dramatically decrease and I'll be in the low 30s. One thing that's interesting for our listeners who are out there that are tracking this and have not started a GLP-1, I've been reading some really interesting articles and some research around how GLP-1s affect and lower HRV.

15:17They have a tendency to increase your resting heart rate. And as a consequence, maybe impact your overall HRV function. And so it's something I'm now tracking with the health at, with JATGPT Health. And I'm going to be very curious because, you know, is there going to have to be a way of adjusting for those users? Is it a temporary change? Well, it was a really interesting baseline. For those that stay on it, it sort of becomes a new baseline. But there was a really interesting write-up I saw very recently where, as an experiment, the writer went off the GLP-1 and his HRV reverted to its higher numbers after a period of a few weeks.

16:02Well, and I mean, just to say like HRV is something where the popularity amongst consumers due to aura and Apple, like the Apple Watch also tracks it, has made people aware of this biometric before clinicians really know anything about it. And the average clinician knows very little about HRV. And so this, I think, is going to be a common theme within healthcare, where we're going to start popularizing things like peptides and HRV and both biometrics and molecules that people have access to and understanding where our medical system hasn't kept up and doesn't have the information. And so how do we square that?

16:44Because we do want to make sure people don't. I probably have wasted more time than I needed to worried about this biometric that probably isn't important in my life. But because I have that information, it's there and I'm thinking about it. Raises your anxiety. Yeah, raises your... Okay, final question on this. Do you find that across Aura and your Apple Watch and other devices you may be using, 8Sleep, for those of us, do you find that the number tends to be consistent or do you find it to be all over the place? No, because my Apple is much higher and better, but I've heard, this is what Jason from Aura told me, that the finger is more accurate and the nighttime reading, specifically the reading right before you wake up, is the most important time.

17:30to measure. So it's like where it's being measured and the time it's being measured. So apparently aura is a more accurate number than, but I would imagine eight sleep and I have eight sleep, but actually don't even look at HRV on there. Does it say HRV? It does. It does. And in the morning, you probably get your readout via text, right? If you enable that feature. And if you look, it'll show. I have found that the eight sleep tends to be high directionally. They're all, they're consistent, but it tends to be a higher number than Aura's. But like you, having talked to Jason Oberfest, who's the VP of product over there and a dear friend of both of ours.

18:05Yeah, he's maybe some bias, but I trust Jason's instinct. But yeah, anyways. All right. What do we got next? Okay. So on the topic of OpenAI, probably most of our listeners have heard from now that they're getting sued over medical advice. So a Florida pastor named Scott Winters sued OpenAI and Sam Altman last week, claiming that ChatGPT's medical advice nearly killed him. According to the complaint, Winters spent months telling ChatGPT about dizziness and blood pressure instability, and the chatbot repeatedly downplayed his symptoms as not dangerous. He followed that advice, and a couple weeks later, unfortunately, he suffered a massive pulmonary embolism that brought him very close to death.

18:52Winters argues that Chachapiti should be treated as a product and that it crossed the line from giving general information into practicing medicine without a license by evaluating his specific symptoms and giving him individualized direction about his care. I know that California has a new law addressing AI use in healthcare, but it took effect after these events, so it's not directly in play here. But OpenAI is already facing other suits that are alleging that ChatGPT is playing a role in things like a teen suicide or a young man's overdose death after they use ChatGPT for drug information. Michael, my question for you, what should people working on AI and healthcare, specifically consumer products, learn from this?

19:41We know that OpenAI team has built HealthBench to improve the accuracy of answers in ChatGPT, and they're thinking about these guardrails. And I do feel like when I ask questions, it's almost more alarmist than it needs to be. I feel like it tells me to see a doctor about things more often than I really probably need to. But I'm curious, like what else should founders and innovators be thinking about and doing in order to protect patients and avoid lawsuits? Yeah, that's a great question. And unfortunately, there's not a lot of answers just yet. I think first, fundamentally, you need to sort of distinguish between education from triage.

20:22So think about a low risk informational question. The model can explain possibilities and help someone prepare for a medical appointment. I think they're well suited for that. Contrast that when you've got symptoms that could indicate something more catastrophic, a stroke, heart attack, blood clot, sepsis, or some other emergent situation. The safest response, unfortunately, from a liability perspective, is usually to escalate rather than reassure. And maybe that's what the, and I understand that lawsuit with Pastor Winters was based on a prior older chat GPT model. Yeah. So I suspect with leadership under Nate Grosser and others, they're probably saying, look, instead of reassuring, this is probably a situation indicating a more catastrophic situation that we should escalate and really, really try to encourage seeking medical advice quickly.

21:14Unfortunately, I don't know if disclaimers alone are going to be enough, Hallie. You can't build a product that provides really detailed, personalized health guidance, and then assume a disclaimer line saying this is not medical advice really resolves that, right? It's not going to protect against every safety issue. But the lawsuit here and others that are surrounding it may begin to finally answer questions that every health AI founder is thinking about. Who is liable when a patient follows that model's advice or their technology's advice? Is the chat box more like a search engine, a publisher, a software product, or a healthcare provider?

21:50I think that's a really interesting question. And does it matter how personalized that advice is, as opposed to that informational sort of low-risk question and answer that I referenced earlier? Is it more personalized? Does that increase the risk? does connecting a medical record, as you did, Hallie, with ChatGPT Health, does that create a higher duty of care? And then what happens when the model or the technology explicitly tells that user not to seek treatment? Which I can't imagine it doing. I'd like to see the transcripts of what he was saying, because I have a hard time believing I've never had that experience with any of these apps.

22:28And at least in the article I read, Hallie, he sort of hinted that it was very casual with him. Oh, you know, you don't have to worry. He was experiencing pains in other parts of his body and they kind of downplayed it. I just can't imagine. That feels more like the treatment that you get at urgent care. They downplay it. Like that actually feels less like any of the experience that I've had with any, any of the AI chat bots talking about health. They're always like, go to the emergency room. I had to spend$1 ,500 on a vet bill for the vet to tell me that my dog was just bloated because it was like, you need to take your dog in immediately.

23:03And we went at like one in the morning because it was, it made it sound like such a big deal, which that brings up the question on the other side of like, there's liability when, you know, if you tell someone not to seek treatment, but then there's a cost if you tell people to seek treatment. And if people are now being told every headache or every tingly feeling that they have to go seek treatment, like we already are over capacity in our healthcare system. So how's this going to play out? I don't, I mean, that's... It's a big open question, you know, and I don't think this particular case will solve and settle all of these questions, but it's going to help us move that conversation from this theoretical risk we're grappling with here on this show to, you know, a very concrete allegation of patient harm and what are the liabilities and what are the expectations in terms of duty of care that the courts are going to impose on these models, these LLM models and these AI solutions?

24:01Or if at all, I mean, if they're just a search engine, are they going to not be responsible? You know, it's a really, really interesting question. But I think we're going to need to, over time, get some answers to really help us as a society balance the incredible benefits against the downside risk. Yeah. And Michael, one last question for you. are you seeing founders get any special type of insurance that covers this kind of stuff? The short answer is, you know, we're still seeing the standard insurance coverages that are out there. You know, it's one that maybe I'll double click on for our next episode because I just haven't seen an overwhelming rush to secure this type of insurance.

24:42I don't even know if it would fall under your general coverage insurance or their cybersecurity insurance. I don't know. So So I haven't seen a floodgate rush to try to secure this, but it's a really good suggestion, and I think I know a number of boardrooms that I have the privilege of sitting in on as outside counsel. It's a topic that's come up before for certain. Yeah. All right. Well, leaving our friends at OpenAI now, let's talk a little bit about a recent West Health Gallup survey, which found that one in four Americans suffer, quote, job lock, unquote, over their health insurance. This really hits home, I know, for a lot of our listeners.

25:22So this new West Health Gallup survey found that nearly one in four U.S. workers, or about 23 million people, are staying in a job they'd rather leave, specifically because they're afraid of losing their health insurance. And what's crazy, Hallie, is this is up eight points just in the last five years. 2021 is when they last measured this. The number gets a lot worse, actually, the more financial strain someone's under. nearly half of people who call healthcare cause a major financial burden. They state that they're staying in that unwanted job for the insurance. And that also jumps to 44 % among people carrying medical debt.

25:58Interestingly, workers with three or more chronic conditions report this same job lock at a 41 % clip versus 17 % for people with no chronic conditions. So health insurance is just so critical and it's forcing these employees to stay in their jobs for fear of having a compromise on coverage under a new employer. Yeah, that's crazy. I'm actually about 75 % the way through Careless People, the book about Facebook. And the woman, the author, really one of the reasons she stayed as long as she did was she had some post-pregnancy complications that she needed good medical care and needed health insurance.

26:39And while she wanted to leave, she had job lock because of that, which is all too common. And it's something that I've thought about for a long time in a country that is so innovative and so pro-entrepreneurship and pro-small business. We really have this anti-small business, anti-competitive symptom of our healthcare system where it It keeps people in jobs they hate and keeps them from doing things they want to do, starting businesses or joining small businesses because it's impossible to get health insurance. Yeah, exactly, Hallie. When your health coverage is tied to a specific employer, leaving that job means really gambling with your access to care.

27:21So people who'd otherwise start a company to your point or take a better offer or go part-time to care for a family member, they just don't or can't. Gallup's read is that this drags down, not surprisingly, labor, mobility, wages, and entrepreneurship all at once and not just the individual well-being of that employee. And it's not even lead distributed either, Hallie, as you might imagine. Women report job lock at a 30 % rate versus 20 % for men. And Gallup ties that partly to women reporting more medical debt and chronic conditions on average. So this is a pain point that our founders out there, our listening founders who are building products around portable benefits, It's ICRAs or individual market coverage.

28:04This is an opportunity to solve some of this. But it is tragic. And there's nothing worse than waking up and going to a job you just hate and knowing you can't leave it because you're so worried for you or your family that you're going to be gambling with your health care. It's crazy. Yeah, it is crazy. I imagine the other thing that for women reporting job lock at a higher rate, I wonder how much pregnancy has to do with that because pregnancy i've i've read that the average birth in the u.s costs more than the average woman makes in a month wow because giving birth is such a high expense high cost medical procedure that you couldn't possibly imagine being pregnant without health insurance um so yeah it's yeah at a time it's really sad and at a time when we're seeing you know, population rates decrease all over the world, including in the United States and Europe and other places.

29:05Pregnancy should be facilitated, not be a hurdle that cost-wise that prevents that. The most dangerous thing you can do as a woman in America is get pregnant and the most expensive thing you can do. So yeah, we need to sort that out. All right. Our last story sounds like it has nothing to do with healthcare, but stick with me. The House just passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, ending the very annoying twice a year clock change. It passed with real bipartisan support, which is very rare today. And next, this now heads to the Senate. We know that Trump supports it as well.

29:47So how does this tie to our work in health care? While it seems like everybody agrees we need to stop changing the time because it's frustrating and annoying, there is some disagreement as to which time to default to. And the healthcare associations, a lot of them have opinions, like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the AMA, the Sleep Research Society, the National Sleep Foundation, who knew we had so many of these. But they all, they said, we support the stop, the ending of time switching, but they want to see permanent standard time. Standard time matches the Earth's natural sun position, so it's bright in the morning, while DST or daylight saving time, that moves the clock forward one hour and it gives us an extra hour of light in the evening.

30:33And the sleep groups argue that it's more important to match our body's internal clocks and keep that light in the morning instead of the evening. Well, I have my favorite and I love this because I love getting home and having an extra hour of daylight during the dark and winter months. But you wake up slowly anyways, you're up before the sun anyways, right? True, true. Okay, so Hallie, I have a really dumb question. This has always perplexed me. Why do we change clocks in the first place? Doesn't it have something to do with farmers getting more sunlight in the winter? Yes. Okay, so that is a very common myth that I also thought it had something to do with the farmers until I was researching for this story.

31:12So the main reason daylight saving time started was actually to save fuel and electricity in World War I, giving people more natural daylight after work. And the saving part of daylight saving is literally about saving money on electricity. And the agricultural industry actually lobbied against it in 1919. What? Okay, so this is crazy because I always thought they were the ones that wanted this. I know. I know. We all blame these poor farmers. But no, that's likely how they've been associated with it because they were actually rallying against it. But in recent years, in the rear sense, research has really shown that springing forward and falling back, which I literally have to say to myself when I'm thinking about how to change the clock, turns out it's not good for our health.

32:01It might have saved money back in the early 1900s, but now studies that are analyzing things like accidents over the last few decades, they're finding that fatal crashes increase 6 % the week after we spring forward because people are more tired from losing sleep. Other research points to a 10 to 24 percent bump in heart attack risk the Monday after the spring shift. Because in general, I know in general, it just leads to sleep loss, confusion, stress for really for no good reason. So if the Senate follows the House and Trump signs it, we will get rid of this disruption, which I think will make all of us very happy.

32:40But according to sleepers or researchers, they think that we're picking the wrong time. So it'll be interesting to see if it can maybe shift and we could be on regular time. This makes a lot of sense. Who would have thought the health implications were so significant? I mean, for me, it's just, it takes me a good five, six days to finally adjust, you know? And that first, that Monday is so brutal. God, it's so brutal. Yeah. So what a month, Hallie. There's lots going on as always. What a month. Yeah. Yeah, well, it was good to do these headlines with you. And it is now August, which is hard to believe.

33:17We have some back-to-school episodes coming up that are exciting. And yeah, thank you, Michael. And thank you, listeners, for tuning in today. Great to see you as always, my dear friend. Looking forward to the next one.

33:34Thanks for listening to The Heart of Healthcare. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support the podcast, Please leave a rating and review, and don't forget to subscribe. The Heart of Healthcare is produced by Hallie Tecko and hosted by Michael Esquivel, Steve Krauss, and Hallie Tecko. The show is engineered, edited, and mixed by Kyle Moore. Visit our website, heartofhealthcarepodcast.com, for show notes and details.