Here is something that surprises many health startup founders. The easiest way into MedCity News is often not a news pitch about your company at all. It is a sharp opinion about a problem your company happens to understand better than most.
MedCity News, published by Breaking Media, covers the business of healthcare innovation: digital health, medical devices, biopharma, health system strategy and the investors who fund all of it. Its readers are founders, executives, investors and health system leaders who want to know what is changing and why. The outlet runs news and analysis from its reporters, and it also publishes opinion pieces from people working in the industry through its MedCity Influencers section. That second door is open to founders far more often than the first.
This guide explains how to get featured in MedCity News through both routes, and how to tell which one fits your company today. It is written for founders of health tech, medtech and life sciences startups who are doing their own PR or managing a small agency.
Step 1: Understand what MedCity News covers, and what it skips
Read a few weeks of the site before you pitch. You will notice patterns. Reporters cover funding rounds when they say something about a sector, such as a large raise in a crowded category or a round led by a notable health system’s venture arm. They cover partnerships between startups and health systems or payers when the deal has real scope. They cover regulatory moves, clinical results, layoffs, acquisitions and shifts in strategy at well-known companies. They also run analysis on themes: the economics of virtual care, AI in clinical documentation, the state of digital health funding, the future of value-based care.
What they tend to skip is the routine. A small seed round with no notable investors, a product update, a generic partnership with no numbers or a rebrand rarely makes the cut. That is not a judgment on your company. It is a judgment on whether the news would matter to a reader who does not already know you.
Before you write anything, place your news in one of those patterns. If it fits none of them, the opinion route in Step 4 is likely your better path for now.
If you are unsure, search the site for two or three competitors. How they were covered, and how often, tells you which kind of story the outlet sees in your category.
Step 2: Build your Evidence Stack before you pitch
We ask every health founder to assemble what we call an Evidence Stack before pitching any healthcare outlet. It has four layers, and the more you have, the stronger your pitch.
The first layer is a named customer. A health system, payer, employer or pharma company that will be named in the story, ideally with a person who will speak.
The second layer is a measured result. A number from a real deployment: readmissions, time saved, cost per member, adherence, enrollment speed. State how it was measured and over what period.
The third layer is outside validation. A peer-reviewed study, a regulatory clearance, a recognized investor or an award with a credible judging process.
The fourth layer is a clear point of view. One sentence that says what you believe about your market that others do not.
A founder with all four layers can pitch news. A founder with only the fourth layer should pitch opinion. A founder with none should wait, build, then come back.
Step 3: Pitch news to the right reporter
MedCity News reporters cover beats, and their bylines show which ones. Find the reporter who has written most recently about your area, whether that is digital health, medtech, biopharma or health system strategy, and pitch them directly.
Keep the pitch short. Lead with the news and the named customer in the first sentence. Put your measured result in the second. Explain why it matters now in the third, connecting it to a trend the reporter has already written about. Offer an interview with you and, if possible, with the customer. Then stop.
A funding announcement needs extra context to work. Explain what the money is for, who led the round and why that matters, and what the round says about your category. “We raised $12 million” is not a story. “A health system’s venture fund led our round because it wants to deploy our tool across its 14 hospitals” might be.
Offer embargoes carefully. If you give a reporter early access to news under embargo, give a firm date and time and respect it. Breaking an embargo, even by accident through your own social posts, damages trust quickly.
Step 4: Use the opinion route
MedCity Influencers publishes contributed pieces from industry practitioners. For founders, this is often the fastest way to appear in MedCity News, and it builds credibility that makes your later news pitches stronger.
The bar is a real argument, not a sales pitch. Strong pieces take a position on a debate the industry is having, back it with experience or data and offer something useful to the reader. A founder of a care navigation startup writing about why employer benefits programs fail to reach the people who need them most, with specific examples, is the kind of piece that works. The same founder writing about how their platform solves the problem is not.
Check the current submission guidelines on the site before you write, because requirements change. In general, expect editors to want original, unpublished work, a clear disclosure of your company affiliation and a piece that stands on its own without promoting your product. Write in plain language. Cut jargon. Name real examples where you can, and avoid anything that could identify a patient.
A good test is to imagine a competitor reading your piece. If they would nod along and learn something, you have written an opinion piece. If they would roll their eyes at a disguised ad, rewrite it.
What a strong MedCity News pitch looks like
Abstract advice only goes so far, so here is an illustrative example of how two versions of the same pitch compare.
The weak version reads something like this. “Hi, I’m the CEO of a digital health company that uses AI to improve care coordination. We just raised a seed round and launched our platform. Would you be interested in covering us?” Every sentence is about the company. Nothing tells the reporter what changed in healthcare, who was affected or why it matters this week.
The strong version reads differently. “A 300-bed community hospital in Ohio cut the average time from discharge to first follow-up call from four days to under 24 hours after moving its care coordinators onto our platform, according to six months of data the hospital shared with us. The hospital’s director of care management can talk through what changed and what did not work at first. Given your recent coverage of readmission penalties, I thought this might be useful. We are also announcing a $9 million round led by the venture arm of a regional health system, which plans to roll the tool out to two more hospitals next year.”
The second pitch names the customer type, gives a measured result, offers a health system voice, ties the story to the reporter’s own coverage and treats the funding as supporting detail rather than the headline. It is also short enough to read in under a minute. That is the shape to aim for.
Founders also make a few predictable mistakes. They pitch every reporter at the outlet at once, which looks like a mass email because it is one. They send long decks or attachments instead of a link. They describe their company as “the Uber of” or “the first platform to,” which invites skepticism. And they follow up three or four times in a week. One follow-up, a few working days after the first email, with something new to add, is plenty.
Last, be honest about timing. If your news is a modest seed round with no customers yet, say less and wait. Coming back in six months with a named health system and real results will earn far more attention than pushing a thin story today.
Step 5: Show up where the reporters are
MedCity News runs events, including its INVEST conferences focused on health innovation and investment. Events are one of the few places where founders meet reporters and editors in person, and those meetings make later pitches warmer.
You do not need a speaking slot to benefit. Attend sessions that match your area, listen to the questions reporters ask and introduce yourself briefly afterward. Do not pitch on the spot unless asked. Follow up a week later with a short note that references the conversation and offers your expertise on a topic you discussed.
If you do apply to speak or pitch on stage, bring your Evidence Stack. Event organizers look for the same things reporters do: a clear story, proof and a willingness to talk candidly.
Whichever route you take, remember that every piece you place becomes part of how to get featured in MedCity News the next time. Editors and reporters notice contributors who deliver clean copy on time, respond fast to edits and do not push for promotional changes.
Step 6: Turn one story into lasting visibility
Coverage in MedCity News reaches investors, partners and potential hires on the day it runs. It also lasts longer than most founders expect, because it becomes part of the public record about your company.
Use that. Link to the story from your website’s press page and from your founder bio. Share it with investors and customers with a short note on why it matters. Mention it in sales conversations where credibility helps.
There is a quieter benefit as well. AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini draw on reputable trade publications when they describe companies and categories. A well-reported story or a thoughtful opinion piece in MedCity News makes it more likely that your company appears, accurately described, when someone asks an AI tool about your market. That kind of visibility compounds. One good piece leads a reporter to remember you, which leads to a quote in another story, which leads to more citations.
The short version of how to get featured in MedCity News is to give its readers evidence or insight they cannot get elsewhere. Start with your Evidence Stack. If it is thin, write the opinion piece first. If it is full, pitch the news. Either way, give MedCity News something its readers would want to know, and the coverage tends to follow.