How to scale virtual care and cut costs in a high-pressure economy
Economic uncertainty is reshaping healthcare consumer behavior. Tariffs, inflation, and rising costs across everyday essentials are forcing patients to think twice about how and where they spend money out-of-pocket. For digital health companies, especially those operating in direct cash-pay models, this shift is more than a ripple. It’s a wave that affects everything from patient volumes to conversion rates to revenue predictability.
The healthcare industry is certainly taking note. A recent PWC Pulse Survey found that 61% of health industry executives are reevaluating short-term strategies due to economic policy and uncertainty. “Value pools are shifting, care delivery models are changing and technology is advancing, and strategic agendas need to adapt," PwC wrote. Analysts say the biggest risk is not volatility, but inaction. "Leading organizations are taking action and finding opportunities despite a lack of clarity. The bigger risk is missing the moment and waiting for conditions to stabilize—a wait that could be futile."
In this environment, every touchpoint must deliver value. Every operational investment must be measured. And every dollar spent must generate a return. That means your internal operations, clinical infrastructure, and growth strategy can’t be just good enough. For sustainable success, programs need to be capital efficient and revenue aligned with care that earns patient loyalty over time.
The challenge of delivering telehealth at scale: Growth vs. efficiency
As digital health companies mature, they face a pivotal decision: evolve care programs and expand into new geographies, or risk stagnation in a crowded, commoditized single-condition market.
But expansion isn't easy. Growing into new service lines or regions typically requires building or managing a broader clinical workforce, licensing infrastructure, and regulatory oversight. These all add to operating expenses (OPEX) and can quickly turn a growth strategy into a cost center.
Even the most promising care innovations can get bogged down in operational complexity if the underlying infrastructure can’t scale with them.
Why traditional clinical staffing models fall short
Many digital health companies already work with clinical partners. But traditional clinical networks often function more like staffing agencies: they provide clinicians, but little else.
These models are typically disconnected from the tech stack, require separate workflows, and add layers of operational overhead. They don’t help with compliance, aren’t built for cross-state flexibility, and rarely offer visibility into care quality or patient outcomes.
If you're looking to expand care programs or geographies, you need more than clinicians on call. You need integrated infrastructure that helps you navigate state-by-state regulations, ensures consistency in care, and provides the data and tools to optimize performance at scale.
That’s why companies are increasingly shifting to technology-enabled solutions with a credentialed clinician network that integrates care delivery, tech infrastructure, and regulatory management under one roof.
The risks of reactive cost-cutting in digital health
In a tightening economic climate, some digital health companies look to reduce expenses by scaling back clinical programs, shrinking teams, or freezing expansion. But healthcare isn’t like other industries. The wrong cut can erode patient trust, weaken brand equity, and create an experience gap competitors will gladly fill.
These tradeoffs may provide short-term relief, but they often carry long-term consequences:
- Cutting internal teams compromises support for both patients and clinicians.
- Halting service line expansion creates a missed opportunity to meet new or emerging patient needs.
- Delaying your product roadmap risks falling behind as patient expectations evolve.
- Scaling back quality initiatives can open the door to care inconsistencies, poor outcomes, and churn.
OPEX cuts without strategy lead to lost revenue, lost loyalty, and lost ground.
The build vs. buy dilemma for virtual care delivery
The instinct to build everything in-house is common, especially for product-led teams. But powering virtual care with your own infrastructure including clinical teams, governance structures, and custom workflows can be both capital intensive and time-consuming.
Every new treatment area or state requires compliance planning, clinician sourcing, credentialing, scheduling infrastructure, EMR configuration, and quality assurance. For a company looking to move fast or protect margins, this can slow velocity and bloat costs.
This is why more digital health companies are shifting to a “buy to build” strategy: plugging into flexible clinical infrastructure that can launch programs quickly while minimizing overhead. Instead of managing every element of care delivery, companies can “lease” care infrastructure with integrated clinical operations that offer speed, scalability, and brand control without the resource drain.
The importance of patient data and consumer experience
As digital health companies expand into new care areas, it can be tempting to stand up point solution vendors for each specialty—contracting one vendor for dermatology, another for women’s health, and yet another for weight management. While this may seem efficient in the short term, it often leads to fragmented infrastructure, disjointed consumer experiences, and siloed data.
Each additional vendor creates another data silo, another integration to manage, and another inconsistency in how patients experience your brand. From a patient’s perspective, care can feel transactional and disconnected even if it all happens under your name.
This fragmentation also handicaps your ability to track outcomes, understand patient behavior, and drive personalization. When data lives in different systems or with vendors you don’t control it becomes nearly impossible to deliver cohesive, longitudinal care or extract insights that fuel product and engagement strategy.
The smarter move is to consolidate care delivery on infrastructure that supports multi-condition care from the start. With a unified partner like Wheel, data stays in one ecosystem, and your team maintains visibility across the entire patient journey. That means better outcomes, more personalized care, and a stronger foundation for long-term growth.
A single source of truth powers a better patient experience and smarter business decisions.
The shift from transactional care to longitudinal, relationship-driven models
Virtual care initially surged on the back of convenience with quick visits, simple conditions, and transactional engagement. But long-term growth depends on evolving from one-time care to longitudinal journeys.
Instead of just treating UTIs or acne, companies are building programs to treat underlying conditions, deliver better outcomes, and serve patients comprehensively. These include programs like menopause, weight management, and chronic condition care. These areas offer more value for both the patient and the business, more customer touchpoints, and more opportunity to build brand trust and recurring revenue.
This is where platform flexibility matters. The ability to launch new services from a library of evidence-based care programs allows companies to meet patient needs as they evolve without overextending operations.
Delivering patient-first care in a cost-conscious world
Even as patients become more cost-sensitive, expectations around speed and quality remain high. Delays in access, impersonal care, or clunky workflows can lead to lost conversions and lower retention.
To meet these demands, digital health companies need infrastructure that delivers fast, consistent, and high-quality care across all conditions and states. That means efficient scheduling, responsive support, well-trained clinicians, and branded experiences that instill trust from the first click.
In today’s economy, delivering fast, trusted care isn't a luxury, it’s a competitive necessity.
Reduce OPEX and generate revenue with virtual care infrastructure
In today’s economic climate, virtual care leaders must operate with a dual lens: how to cut costs without compromising growth, and how to build scalable revenue streams without inflating overhead.
That means investing in infrastructure that’s flexible, capital-efficient, and built for whole-person care. Whether you build it or lease it, the strategy should be the same: expand wisely, scale efficiently, and focus on care models that deliver high-value returns.
Wheel gives digital health companies the power to scale without overspending, drive LTV without delay, and deliver consumer-first care without compromise.
Looking to explore a smarter approach to virtual care delivery? Let’s talk.