Over the few months, headlines in the health-tech world have centered around legal action between Function Health and Superpower, with allegations ranging from unfair competition and marketing claims to business practice disputes. Regardless of how that shakes out legally, one thing is undeniable:
Consumers want their labs.
They want access.
They want clarity.
They want ownership of their data.
And companies like Function and Superpower have proven there is massive appetite for beautifully packaged, consumer-facing testing.
But here’s the bigger story.
The lab wars just escalated.
The Critique of the Consumer Lab Model
One of the most common critiques leveled at these direct-to-consumer lab platforms is simple:
“They’re just repackaging existing lab tests.”
There’s truth in that.
The blood panels already existed.
The biomarkers were already available.
The interpretation frameworks were already known.
What changed was the packaging, the user experience, and the story.
They made labs sexy.
They made prevention aspirational.
They made biomarkers mainstream.
And for that, they deserve credit.
But what happens when that same infrastructure becomes available to 125,000 practitioners overnight?
Enter Fullscript’s Journeys
Fullscript has quietly built one of the largest practitioner user bases in North America since its founding in 2011.
Now with Journeys, they’ve created something much more strategic:
Any clinic with a Fullscript account can effectively launch its own “Function Health–style” lab program.
Here’s what that means:
- Offer accessible lab bundles to patients
- Add a follow-up consultation (if desired, not necessary, 60% aren’t)
- Generate an AI-powered summary
- Edit and personalize it
- Deliver a clean, understandable report
- Convert that into an ongoing clinical relationship
This isn’t just selling labs.
This is building a prevention engine inside your practice.
125,000 New Competitors
Function and Superpower may have thought they were competing with each other.
Instead, they’re about to compete with every clinic that has a Fullscript account.
If even a fraction of those practitioners activate Journeys, we’re not talking about two consumer brands battling for ad space.
We’re talking about tens of thousands of local, trusted clinicians offering community-based precision prevention.
That’s a different game entirely.
The Hidden Multiplier Effect
Here’s where it gets interesting.
In early pilots, practices are seeing approximately a 1.5x referral multiplier from patients who complete a structured lab journey.
That means:
For every patient who goes through the program,
1.5 additional people hear about it and enter the funnel.
Labs become:
- A marketing asset
- A referral engine
- A trust builder
- A gateway to deeper care
This is not just diagnostics.
It’s distribution.
What Happens If 10,000 Clinics Activate?
Let’s run a thought experiment.
What if:
- 10,000 clinics each activate Journeys
- Each clinic enrolls just 500 people from their community over 12 months
That’s 5 million people receiving structured, clinician-guided lab interpretation.
Not via an app.
Not via influencer marketing.
But through trusted local healthcare professionals.
That’s what prevention at scale could actually look like.
Why This Matters
For years, I’ve argued that the bottleneck in preventive medicine isn’t science.
It’s infrastructure.
Consumer lab companies proved demand exists.
Now the infrastructure is moving into the hands of clinicians.
That changes the equation.
Because unlike direct-to-consumer platforms, clinicians can:
- Contextualize labs within a patient’s story
- Address root causes
- Personalize interventions
- Build long-term therapeutic relationships
The AI summary inside Journeys isn’t replacing the practitioner.
It’s augmenting them.
And that’s a fundamentally different future than pure consumer diagnostics.
The Bigger Picture: From Lab Wars to Prevention Networks
The “lab wars” might dominate tech headlines.
But the real transformation won’t come from who has the slickest dashboard.
It will come from who controls the relationship.
If labs become a front door into:
- Longitudinal care
- Precision interventions
- Community-based prevention
- Scalable practitioner networks
Then we’re not just watching companies fight.
We’re watching the emergence of a distributed prevention model.
And if this works the way it could, the biggest competitor to consumer health startups won’t be another startup.
It will be the clinic down the street.
Practitioners
