How 5 Digital Health Verticals Use At-Home Diagnostic Testing

The global digital health market is on the decline, and digital health companies need to get creative about reaching potential customers if they hope to survive uncertain economic conditions ahead. One way is to market at-home diagnostic test kits as a product or launch at-home diagnostics as part of a sales funnel to sell specialized health and wellness products. Below, we review how five digital health verticals can take advantage of at-home diagnostics in 2023 and beyond.

1. Teledermatology Services and Skincare

Since dermatology is a visually-dependent medical field, at-home diagnostics and remote supervision can provide support for medical conditions like acne, skin cancer, and allergic reactions. Store and forward telemedicine allows a patient to submit a photograph or video of his/her/their concern for review and diagnosis. Alternatively, video conferencing connects patients and physicians to review skin, hair, and nail concerns in real time. 

Learn more about home diagnostics for teledermatology on our blog. 

Incorporating at-home diagnostics and other elements of teledermatology allows digital health companies to offer tailored products. Apostrophe offers prescription acne treatment online, and uses dried blood spot cards to perform routine accutane lab work (generic: isotretinoin) for long-term medication maintenance. Digital health companies can hire dermatologists or provider of record networks to approve isotretinoin blood tests. Skincare brands like Veracity Selfcare already ship at-home saliva self-tests to patients seeking skincare and supplement recommendations. 

2. At-Home PrEP Maintenance 

‍PrEP is a once-daily pill that is 99% effective at preventing HIV. Though it is often prescribed for men who have sex with men, heterosexual people can also benefit from PrEP, especially trans women, who are at greater risk for contracting the virus, and cis women trying to conceive with an unknown status or HIV positive partner. 

Digital health brands like Q Care Plus and Mistr not only offer PrEP prescriptions online, but also use at-home diagnostic testing to ensure patient access to medication maintenance services. Digital health companies can ship a home creatinine urine test every six months to assess kidney function, as well as dried blood spot card testing for HIV every quarter. While most insurance plans cover PrEP, many of these digital health companies can connect patients without insurance to assistance programs that keep PrEP free. 

3. Fertility Home Test Services

Some digital health companies onboard fertility home test services with laboratory developed tests, which can be resulted from patient kit samples. Patients submit dried blood spot cards, which technicians use to result anti-mullerian hormone levels, as well as FSH (follicle stimulating hormone), and E2 (estradiol). 

While both men and women produce anti-mullerian hormones, this test is usually conducted to measure fertility in people assigned female at birth. AMH levels correspond to the number of eggs a patient has in his/her/their ovarian reserve. FSH is made in the pituitary gland, and stimulates the growth of eggs in the ovaries. In people assigned male at birth, FHS controls the production of sperm. E2 tests measure estradiol, the form of estrogen made primarily by the ovaries. Physicians test estradiol to monitor hormone levels in blood during ART (assisted reproductive technology).  

Chat with Ash about launching fertility home test services in a matter of weeks. 

4. Home Allergy Test Kits 

‍Allergy test kits are a popular type of at-home diagnostic that measure environmental and food based allergies. This diagnostic market is expected to reach $7.5 billion in 2026 at a CAGR of 10.30%, with some experts arguing that the rise of common allergies correlates with increased pollution. As with many diagnostic verticals, greater telehealth usage during the COVID-19 pandemic may have contributed to the newfound popularity of remote allergy testing. 

Some digital health companies sell allergy test kits as a direct to consumer product. However, digital health companies can also provide allergy test kits as part of an initiative to market specialized health and wellness products. Allergy Butler, for example, is a virtual allergist that uses at-home diagnostic testing to evaluate allergies in patients and prescribe allergy immunotherapy via toothpaste or allergy drops. 

5. STI and Sexual Health Testing

‍Self testing for HIV and other STIs with at-home diagnostics is popular with public health entities as an alternative to point of care tests like Oraquick, which don’t connect patients to care. (i.e. Patients might be left alone and unguided with an initial positive test result.) Results with point of care tests are also more likely to be influenced by human error than at-home diagnostic lab tests. 

Some digital health companies offer STI self-collection kits as a direct to consumer product for specific demographics — queer people, Gen Z, etc. The Ash Wellness platform allows digital health companies to approve tests and connect patients with physicians to prescribe ongoing care as necessary. Ash Wellness also provides fourth gen HIV tests, which can detect an infection earlier and with more accuracy. We offer 3-site gonorrhea and chlamydia tests, which let patients swab for three potential STI infections in the anus, mouth, and genitals. 

‍Chat with us to switch on at-home diagnostic testing for your digital health company. 

The Ash Wellness platform provides all the backend support for digital health companies to launch at-home diagnostic testing. We take care of kitting and sourcing for white-label test kits and provide optional notification reminders to guide patients through a complete healthcare flow. Our clients can process 150+ types of diagnostics via our network of CLIA/CAP certified labs across the country. We guarantee physician of record services to approve at-home test kits, and our secure lap API ensures shorter processing speeds with up-to-date technology infrastructure. 

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