What Asian Health Startups Can Learn from the U.S. Telehealth Giants
I keep hearing that Asian countries (especially countries like my native homeland Vietnam) is on the cusp of a digital healthcare explosion, and many digital healthcare organizations in Asia are looking to the US for lessons learned. Boy do we have some to offer!
During my time at Amazon, I led product development efforts for Alexa Health & Wellness Symptom Checker and Telehealth. For Telehealth, we partnered with Teladoc to launch a hands-free, voice-enabled virtual care access point via Alexa devices—an early step toward bringing ambient computing into the care journey. Our vision was ambitious: Bring convenient, nation-wide consumer-grade access to healthcare directly into the home, making it available 24/7. That vision was what drew me to Amazon instead of Google where I had a competing opportunity.
By leveraging Alexa’s voice-forward interface and Amazon’s trusted customer experience, we hoped to make healthcare more accessible and affordable to consumer patients while delivering value to clinicians as well.
While there were meaningful milestones, such as offering access to on-demand physicians at the sound of a voice command, we also faced headwinds that now feel all too familiar across the U.S. digital health landscape.
U.S. Telehealth (and other DTC Players) Grew Fast but Came with Lessons
The pandemic fueled explosive demand for telehealth and DTC (direct-to-consumer) solutions, but the post-COVID reality has shown that many U.S. tech giants struggled to build sustainable models. Here’s what we learned:
💸 Unsustainable CAC
Customer acquisition costs (CAC) were sky-high. Many companies bet big on direct-to-consumer growth or fragile employer contracts, without building long-term retention. Patient consumers read reviews and media coverage of big tech offerings, but at the end of the day, they want to hear real testimonials from people they know and trust. Yes, the marketing can get initial usage, but without a sticky product that consistently delights and delivers value, that big idea doesn’t retain its customer base and (more importantly) doesn’t convert customers to brand ambassadors to drive more scalable growth.
🏥 Convenience ≠ Care
While convenience was often prioritized, it wasn’t always accompanied by continuity and context—both essential to delivering high-quality care. Too often, care was treated like a transaction—fast, one-off visits with little continuity. But healthcare is fundamentally about trust, follow-up, and context. As a primary care physician, I too was able to provide fast, convenient care when I knew the patient well, including their medical conditions, fears, and motivations, and how they make decisions. The patient and I could quickly make those clinical decisions together, but that wasn’t because of a fancy tech solution. That was because of repeated engagement and mutual trust built over time. Healthcare technology solutions still need to be built on those fundaments, and without them, even the best UX (user experience) can fall short.
⚖️ Understand Customer Value
COVID-era regulatory waivers allowed for rapid scaling so that millions of people could access healthcare via DTC solutions during a dire time, for which we’re all grateful. Once pandemic restrictions were lifted, however, I saw first-hand what consumer patients still care about. Yes customers appreciated the convenience, but they wanted the option for in-person human connection with clinical quality, reasonable pricing, and optionality. Consumer patients don’t always want to be routed to a random doctor. They wanted to access care on their terms, sometimes from a DTC platform and sometimes from their own trusted clinicians.
Asia Has a Unique Opportunity
As I look to Vietnam and the broader Asia region, I see an incredible opportunity to do it differently and better.
One key reason: Clinicians in Asia are still deeply respected. In contrast to the U.S., where fragmentation and commoditization have eroded trust, physicians in many Asian markets continue to be seen as authority figures. That cultural capital matters.
Instead of sidelining clinicians in the name of convenience, Asia’s health tech leaders can focus on building hybrid, trust-based models that empower both the patient and the clinician.
Design tools that support continuity of care
Enable flexibility and optionality for consumers
Integrate platforms with local clinical ecosystems
Price services with sensitivity to cultural norms and value expectations
In Vietnam especially—where mobile penetration is high, public-private healthcare is fragmented, and the younger population is tech-savvy—there’s huge potential to meet rising demand without falling into the pitfalls the U.S. experienced.
Build for Trust, Not Just Speed
The future of digital health isn’t just about access or UX. It’s about integration. It’s about designing tools that fit into real people's lives and real clinicians' workflows. It’s about delivering medical value with the same thoughtfulness we bring to user journeys and growth metrics.
For startups in Asia, the opportunity isn’t just to “catch up” with the U.S. It’s to leapfrog it, by building models rooted in local trust, cultural context, and sustainable care delivery.
Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. Let’s build smarter, together.
Curious to hear what others think: What lessons has your team learned from building or scaling virtual care across Asia?
