Interview with Scott Rotermund, co-founder and chief growth officer at Welltok

Welltok - Scott Rotermund

Our latest interviewee is Scott Rotermund, co-founder and chief growth officer at Welltok, where he is responsible for driving new strategic partnerships and foraging collaborations with population health organizations. Rotermund is a successful serial entrepreneur, building on more than 20 years of industry experience in fostering successful client relationships and strategic partnerships within regional, national and Fortune 500 companies. Here’s what he had to say…

How would you pitch your company? What’s your elevator pitch?

We are developing the healthcare industry’s first consumer enterprise platform to guide and incentivize individuals to optimize their health. The CaféWell Health Optimization Platform organizes the growing spectrum of health improvement and condition management resources, obtains consumer insights through advanced analytics and leverages cognitive computing to create personalized, adaptive health itineraries. Health plans and other sponsors now have an efficient and effective way to engage, activate and reward consumers, which drives greater healthcare value across all types of populations, from kids to seniors.

What sets you apart from competitors?

The CaféWell platform covers the full spectrum of health from wellness to condition management. We provide an engaging, personalized experience for consumers with an individualized action plan — based on their health benefits, status and goals — aligned with incentives and rewards to drive engagement. We are also an exclusive IBM Watson partner and leverage its cognitive computing capabilities to provide consumers with a 24/7 personal health concierge.

And perhaps most importantly, we are HITRUST CSF certified to meet the highest standards of HIPAA security and privacy protection for consumers.

What’s your business model?

Welltok sells its services to all types of population health managers, including health insurance plans, large employers, at-risk providers and government agencies. These entities make our CaféWell Health Optimization platform available to their employees, members, and clients – the end user.


Where do you see the company going from here?

The healthcare industry has been predominantly a “sickcare” system, treating patients. It’s recognizing the opportunity to support consumers in their day to day health, which is what our CaféWell platform was designed to do. Welltok continues to build out the capabilities of its platform, such as with the recent acquisition of kid’s program Zamzee, so we can support consumers across all demographics and ages.

Where do you see the mHealth industry going?

We’ve seen a ton of growth in the mHealth industry, and I think we’ll continue to see it grow. There are great innovations being developed and launched every day to improve health and wellness, and manage chronic conditions from diabetes to COPD. However, a new type of chaos has emerged with both population health managers and consumers feeling overwhelmed and fragmented by the number of mHealth solutions available. Partnership among mHealth solutions and an integrated consumer health platform like CaféWell will become critical to get the right solutions in the hands of consumers and demonstrate value.

How long are we from seeing modern mHealth technologies going mainstream?

As mHealth devices become less expensive, they will become ubiquitous. But right now many mHealth technologies only offer data capture and regular, basic reminders to the consumer. Once I know that my morning walks take 2,000 steps, that information becomes less useful because my morning walks are the same each day. I don’t have any incentive to interact with the technology. Just tracking this data isn’t enough to motivate the consumer or create lasting, sustained behaviors. While mHealth is moving more mainstream, it won’t be an effective tool for behavior change until consumers have a reason to be engaged. CaféWell incentivizes consumers with individualized rewards, giving them a reason to not only stick to the healthy behavior, but also engage with the platform.