25% of Patients Churn From Treatment — How One Healthtech Startup Fixed Retention

25% of behavioral health patients quit treatment because they can't stick to their meds. One startup is fixing that. Featuring Tony Sterns, founder and researcher behind a clinically validated medication adherence system for chronic mental health conditions. Jean-Michel and Tony walk through how his team built an FDA-tracked Class 2 medical device that combines IoT pill dispensing, situational smart alerting, and visual AI assessments to keep patients on their medications — and keep care teams informed when they're not. Tony shares the behavioral science behind why traditional pill reminders actually train people to ignore alerts, and what his team built instead using soft operant conditioning principles inspired by work alongside B.J. Fogg. 💊 Why pill boxes and watch alarms detrain correct behavior 🧠 How situational smart alerting reinforces medication habits 🤖 Visual AI that detects side effects before clinicians can 🏥 Navigating FDA Class 2 designation for a hardware-software system 🤝 Why co-opetition with competitors matters in healthtech ⏱️ Timestamps: 00:00 The medication adherence problem nobody solved 01:30 Situational smart alerting explained 03:00 Care team integration when patients miss doses 04:00 Behavioral science roots and B.J. Fogg connection 05:00 Avoiding the "temple of pills" and detraining 06:00 Journey to market and regulatory path 08:00 FDA Class 2 designation and contract manufacturing 10:00 Winning AMIA, surviving COVID, and rebuilding momentum 10:50 AI, HIPAA compliance, and data architecture 13:00 Advice for founders building in regulated markets 🔥 Building a B2B company and want qualified conversations with decision-makers? 👉 https://www.rapidproductgrowth.com 🔗 Website: https://www.rapidproductgrowth.com 🔗 Jean-Michel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanmichelthink/ #HealthTech #MedicalDevice #SaaS #MedicationAdherence #RapidProductGrowth