ATA Action Acquires Digital Therapeutics Alliance: A New Era for Digital Health Advocacy

ATA Action, the advocacy arm of the American Telemedicine Association, has acquired the Digital Therapeutics Alliance (DTA), marking a significant consolidation in the digital health policy landscape. The deal, unanimously approved by the boards of both organizations, creates a powerful unified voice to champion the integration of telehealth and digital therapeutics across the U.S. healthcare system.

Announced in April 2025, the acquisition positions ATA Action to lead federal and state advocacy efforts across a wider spectrum of digital health modalities, including prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs), digital diagnostics, remote monitoring tools, and artificial intelligence–driven interventions. The combined organization will also launch a new initiative: the Advancing Digital Health Coalition, headed by DTA CEO Andy Molnar, who now serves as Senior Vice President of Industry Affairs at the ATA and Head of Digital Health at ATA Action.

Strategic Implications

The acquisition comes at a pivotal time. Digital therapeutics—software-based treatments with clinical claims supported by real-world evidence—have made significant inroads with the FDA and CMS in recent years. However, fragmented regulatory pathways, uneven payer adoption, and inconsistent reimbursement models have slowed their uptake.

With DTA’s global regulatory relationships and ATA Action’s proven track record influencing U.S. telehealth legislation, the merger aims to accelerate access, coverage, and standards development. DTA had been instrumental in shaping the FDA’s Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) framework and was a stakeholder in the Digital Health Advisory Committee launched in 2023.

“Together, we are well-positioned to remove barriers and build the infrastructure to create permanent access to digital care tools,” said Molnar in the announcement (ATA Action Press Release, 2025).

Policy Priorities: What’s on the Horizon

According to ATA Action, the combined organization will push forward in the following areas:

• Ensure permanent telehealth flexibilities post-PHE (public health emergency)
• Advocate for reimbursement parity for clinically validated digital therapeutics
• Expand the FDA’s regulatory clarity for AI-enabled tools and PDTs
• Support cross-state licensing compacts to reduce provider friction

These issues are especially urgent as the industry awaits decisions on Medicare reimbursement pathways for digital therapeutics and clearer guidance from the Biden administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy on AI oversight in healthcare.

Impact for Industry Stakeholders

For developers of digital health tools, this merger offers a more direct policy channel to align with regulators and payers. For health systems and providers, it signals growing momentum behind reimbursement and interoperability standards for integrating digital therapeutics into EHRs and care pathways.

For example, the coalition plans to target expanded recognition of digital mental health treatments—such as those cleared under the FDA’s Breakthrough Devices program—and increase payer awareness of coverage codes under CPT and HCPCS.

“We’re expanding our advocacy to support digital tools that treat, manage, and prevent diseases,” said Kyle Zebley, Executive Director of ATA Action. “This includes not just telehealth but the full spectrum of virtual and technology-enabled care models.”

What to Watch

With more than 20 FDA-cleared digital therapeutics on the market and dozens more in the pipeline, the need for coordinated policy guidance is growing. Congressional support for digital health infrastructure, such as the 2023 Access to Prescription Digital Therapeutics Act, is likely to gain renewed traction under the ATA-DTA alliance’s unified lobbying strategy.

Stakeholders across the ecosystem—including payers, providers, pharma, and tech firms—will be closely watching how this advocacy shift influences reimbursement models, clinical integration, and ultimately, patient access to evidence-based digital interventions.

As healthcare continues to digitize, this consolidation could represent a watershed moment: a pivot from fragmented lobbying to unified industry voice—just as payers and regulators begin to take digital care seriously at scale.