Building Trust and Network Effects in a Fragmented System: Key Insights and Lessons with Kyle Kiser, CEO of Arrive Health
In the complex world of prescription drug access, Arrive Health is dedicated to driving transparency, connectivity, and better outcomes. Arrive’s platform connects payers, PBMs, providers, pharmacies, and patients at the point of prescribing—empowering more informed medication decisions that reduce costs and improve adherence.
While much of the focus in digital health has been on consumer apps, Arrive Health believes that prescribers are the linchpin of change. Their platform integrates directly into EHR workflows, enabling physicians to make better decisions alongside their patients. This upstream presence positions Arrive to influence the entire drug journey, from access to affordability to adherence.
“We do our best to drive value for all our stakeholders, such as consumers, providers and plan sponsors, because if you’re not delivering enough value to a node on the network, you’re going to lose that node, and then you lose the value of the network as a whole. ”
In this candid conversation (below), CEO Kyle Kiser shares how Arrive built trust in a competitive space, how platform businesses navigate the “chicken or egg” problem, and why reciprocity is at the heart of sustainable network effects in healthcare.
For the full interview and insights from other platform business CEOs, check out the 2025 State of Healthcare Platforms Report.
The 2025 State of Healthcare Platforms Report is the trusted source for analysis and insight into the world of network effects in digital health.
Insights from Kyle Kiser, CEO of Arrive Health
Arrive Health takes a unique approach to differentiation in a mature market with large incumbents.
“There's been many efforts to engage consumers in healthcare and in the drug pricing world specifically, but that is only one way to address price transparency.
We've always been convinced that the providers are really important stewards in the prescription journey and that providing them the tools to make the best decisions, with their patients, is very important.
Our goal is to drive better outcomes for patient health by engaging their providers. At the point of care, we want to help the provider and the patient understand their options with a good deal of granularity.”
Interdependency and reciprocity are critical to sustaining network effects and driving value for all.
“We do our best to drive value for all our stakeholders, such as consumers, providers and plan sponsors, because if you're not delivering enough value to a node on the network, you're going to lose that node, and then you lose the value of the network as a whole.
Interdependency is really important. And highlighting it for each of the stakeholders on the network is equally important. This helps everyone see where opportunities align. Because, while stakeholders may have conflicting interests, ultimately everyone wants the same thing. Everybody wants to resolve the prior auth. Everybody wants to make sure the patient can afford their meds. Everybody wants to make sure that the patient gets on therapy, stays on therapy and gets a better health outcome. Esoterically, as long as everything we do is going to prioritize the patient’s interests, it will end up prioritizing every stakeholder’s interest.”
Building and maintaining trust has been critical to growing the business in a highly competitive environment.
“We try to be consistent with our values. One of those values is doing what's right. We approach every customer conversation with that intent. We don't intend to step one foot outside of any of the data use rights we've been given, for example.
My personal philosophy, and our leadership team's philosophy, is that the ends and the means are inseparable. How we do the things we do is just as important as the things we do.
As we built the business, we've tried to approach it from that perspective, and I think that we've earned trust because of it.”
Building a platform business is a 100-mile race, and the first 20 miles is the slog.
“Building a multi-sided network, especially one dependent on platforms that are hard to integrate with, is difficult in those early years. The time consuming and expensive part is getting past the chicken or the egg problem.
If it's a 100 mile journey, the journey from mile one to 20 is the hardest. If you get to the 20 mile mark, you get to a point where it's almost a foregone conclusion that you're going to get to the 100 mile mark. Once you solve the chicken or the egg problem and reach the 20-mile mark, the opportunity, the value that you can stack on top of the network, is pretty significant. That's where you start to see the network effects that are possible. That’s when the higher gross margin comes in. That’s when you can really start layering on value.
We want to be a piece of technology that can be the connective tissue that drives change in the industry. We want to drive better health outcomes for individuals and lower costs for the industry.”
