Healthcare: Teardown Pack

Load this pack when the target is a clinic, dental or dermatology practice, med spa, telehealth or digital health company, or a medtech or pharma brand. Growth here runs through trust, insurance, and regulation. Tracking is restricted, ad claims are policed, and the patient journey often involves a referral, a payer, or a prescriber.

Contents

• How to recognize it
• What drives growth here
• Signals to collect
• Going inside
• Rules that limit copying
• Plays that usually transfer
• Metrics to ask about

How to Recognize It

• Booking widgets from scheduling platforms (Zocdoc, NexHealth, Solutionreach, Jane, Healthie) and "book an appointment" as the main CTA.
• Insurance pages ("insurances we accept"), provider bio pages with credentials, and location pages per clinic.
• Telehealth patterns: an intake quiz before pricing, "prescribed by a licensed provider", state availability lists, and subscription pricing.
• Pharma and medtech patterns: "Important Safety Information" blocks, "Indication" sections, HCP vs patient site splits (/hcp, hcp. subdomains found by teardown.mjs subdomains).
• Consent-heavy analytics: server-side tagging, HIPAA-compliant analytics tools, and few or no ad pixels on logged-in or intake pages. teardown.mjs detect <domain> and teardown.mjs stack <domain> show this.

What Drives Growth Here

• Who decides varies. In clinics, patients choose. In specialty care, referring doctors choose. In pharma, prescribers and payers choose. Find which one the target markets to before judging its channels.
• Insurance and price shape demand. Cash-pay businesses (med spas, telehealth, cosmetic dental) market like ecommerce. In-network practices grow through payer directories, referrals, and local search.
• Trust signals convert. Provider credentials, reviews, before/after galleries where allowed, and condition content written or reviewed by clinicians.
• Tracking is constrained. After HHS issued guidance on tracking technologies (December 2022, revised March 2024), many providers removed pixels. A federal court vacated part of that guidance in June 2024 (AHA v. Becerra), but HIPAA still bars sending patient information to ad platforms, and the FTC has acted against health apps for the same thing. Meta also restricts lower-funnel conversion events for many health and wellness advertisers. Missing pixels or missing purchase events may be compliance, not a lack of paid ads.
• Telehealth grows like DTC with a clinical gate: paid social, influencers, quizzes, and subscriptions, limited by state licensing and prescribing rules.

Signals to Collect

Going Inside

• Never book an appointment you won't keep. A no-show costs a practice a real slot and may block a real patient. Only book if the user actually wants the care.
• Never enter real or fake health information. Stop intake quizzes before the health questions, or use questions that don't require personal health data. Don't create a patient record.
• With approval, it's fine to: read public pricing, call the front desk to ask about pricing, insurance, and availability under the user's real name, and record response speed and the scheduling flow.
• For telehealth, walk the funnel to the checkout or medical intake and stop. Screenshot pricing, plans, and the subscription terms.

Rules That Limit Copying

• HIPAA and HHS tracking guidance: covered entities can't send protected health information to ad platforms through pixels. Copying a competitor's tracking setup can create violations. Check with counsel.
• FTC Health Breach Notification Rule applies to many health apps that aren't covered by HIPAA.
• FDA and FTC split the work. The FDA governs prescription drug and restricted device advertising: fair balance, Important Safety Information, and approved indications only. The FTC covers over-the-counter drugs, supplements, most devices, and health claims in general. In September 2025 the FDA began a broad enforcement push on drug ads, including social media and influencer posts, and it has warned telehealth companies against marketing compounded drugs as if they were approved products.
• FTC substantiation: health claims need competent and reliable scientific evidence. Before/after claims need typical-result context.
• Platform policies: Google's healthcare and medicines policy requires certification for some categories (online pharmacies, addiction services). Meta restricts targeting and personal health assertions ("Are you struggling with...").
• Controlled substances: prescribing them through telehealth falls under DEA rules whose temporary flexibilities have been extended several times. Check the current status before copying a telehealth model.
• State rules: medical advertising, corporate practice of medicine, and telehealth licensing vary by state. Check with counsel.

Plays That Usually Transfer

Metrics to Ask About

• Cost per booked appointment: spend divided by kept appointments, not form fills.
• Show rate: share of booked appointments kept.
• New patient volume: per location per month.
• Patient lifetime value: visits or subscription months times margin.
• Referral share: patients from referring providers vs self-referred.
• Intake completion rate: for telehealth, quiz start to paid consult.
• Retention: subscription churn for telehealth, recall rate for practices.