First economic evaluation of an endometriosis symptom checker shows how women can avoid years of pain and unnecessary costs
LONDON, March 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Currently, it takes an average of seven years for women to receive an endometriosis diagnosis, but a new peer-reviewed study from research collaborators and scientists at Flo Health, the world’s #1 women’s health app[1], found that when digital tools such as the endometriosis Symptom Checker were used as intended, they could help shorten the time to diagnosis by more than four years – or 50%+ sooner – and reduce costs by thousands of dollars per patient in the United States.
Despite affecting an estimated 190 million women worldwide[2], endometriosis, a chronic gynecologic condition, remains widely under-recognized across health care systems. On average, women can spend up to seven years moving through fragmented care pathways and limited symptom awareness, all while living with severe menstrual cramps, chronic pelvic pain, or pain during intercourse before receiving a diagnosis. This diagnostic delay is associated with increased disease severity, worsening pain and more complex treatment paths for many women[3], and thus enabling diagnosis up to four years earlier could significantly mitigate the consequences of late detection and improve disease burden over time.
Published in npj Digital Medicine, a top peer-reviewed medical journal within the prestigious Nature Portfolio publishing group, the study evaluated the health and economic impact of digital tools, such as Flo Health’s Symptom Checker specifically for endometriosis. The study, Economic evaluation of a digital symptom checker for endometriosis using a Markov decision process model, is the first economic evaluation of a digital symptom checker for endometriosis, demonstrating how digital health technology can help address systemic challenges in women’s health care.
“Endometriosis can deeply disrupt women’s lives, yet many spend years searching for answers within a system that hasn’t always been designed to connect the patterns they experience over time,” said Dr. Anna Klepchukova, Chief Medical Officer at Flo. “This research explores how digital tools may help women better recognize their symptoms and bring clearer insights into conversations with their health care providers. While these tools aren’t diagnostic, they support earlier awareness and more informed decisions, ultimately changing the trajectory of their care and their lives.”
To conduct this research, Flo’s science team partnered with academic researchers from The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and York Health Economic Consortium to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Flo’s Symptom Checker alongside standard doctor-led care, compared with standard care alone. The Flo Symptom Checker is a digital tool that enables users to get more information on symptoms and proactively educate them to seek medical care when symptom patterns may match endometriosis, right at their fingertips. When women are empowered to take control of their health, the benefits go beyond early diagnoses to overall improved physical and emotional well-being. To-date, more than 2.7 million women in the U.S. have used Flo’s Symptom Tracker for support with endometriosis.
Key findings include:
- Reduction in average time to diagnosis from approximately 7 years under standard care to around 3 years when Flo’s Symptom Checker is used alongside standard care by educating and triggering earlier care reference.
- A modest improvement in quality-adjusted life years, equivalent to an addition of nearly three weeks of healthy life per patient, enabled by earlier diagnosis and treatment.
- Approximately $5,196 USD in savings per person over a 40 year timespan, resulting from reduced medical costs and less productivity loss.
- A net monetary benefit of $10,089 USD per person, reflecting combined financial savings and the value of improved health outcomes.*
- In general, symptom checkers demonstrate the greatest value realized when their accuracy is above 70%, user compliance exceeds 45%, and when the outcomes are evaluated over a time horizon of at least 10 years.
Together, the findings suggest that digital symptom checkers can help reduce diagnostic delays, improve health outcomes, and long-term economic burden. By helping women feel heard earlier, and offering data-backed insights they can bring into conversations with their providers, digital tools like Flo Symptom Checker can help remove barriers that delay access to diagnosis and treatment.* It is important to note that Flo’s Symptom Checker is designed as an educational resource and does not diagnose, treat, or replace care from a medical professional.
In addition, by focusing on economic value as well as health outcomes, the study contributes to a growing evidence base on how digital health tools can be evaluated beyond accuracy alone. The authors suggest that similar modelling approaches could inform future research on digital tools for other under-recognised women’s health conditions.
References
- Sensor Tower, March ’25, iOS & Android, by downloads
- The New England Journal of Medicine, “Endometriosis” (2020)
- Taylor and Francis, “Understanding diagnostic delay for endometriosis: A scoping review using the social-ecological framework” (2024)
Footnote:
* The incremental net monetary benefit was estimated assuming a willingness-to-pay threshold of $100,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY), a common benchmark for US institutional payers.
*The authors note that although the findings are based on a validated health-economic modelling framework and assumptions, the results should be interpreted as decision-support evidence rather than proof of real-world effectiveness.
About Flo Health
Flo Health is the leading app in the Health & Fitness category; it is the #1 OB-GYN-recommended app for period and cycle tracking and is the first European femtech unicorn following an investment from General Atlantic in July 2024. The company supports 77 million monthly active users (MAUs). With over 100 medical experts, Flo is committed to supporting women at every stage of their health journey, from menstruation to conception, pregnancy, and menopause. It provides curated cycle and ovulation tracking, tailored health insights, daily bite-sized visual content, and a private community for users to share their questions and concerns. As part of its mission to build a better future for female health, Flo’s Pass it on Project aims to improve health literacy by providing up to 1 billion women in need with free access to Flo Premium and has donated 20M subscriptions to date. Flo prioritizes safety and focuses on being the most trusted digital source for women’s health information. Flo Health’s Anonymous Mode feature was recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions 2023 and also named a finalist for Fast Company’s 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards in the Rapid Response category as part of the company’s commitment to privacy. For more information, please visit https://flo.health.
PR Contacts
Samantha Wannemacher
Flo Health
s_wannemacher@flo.health
Sunshine Sachs Morgan & Lylis
flo@ssmandl.com
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SOURCE Flo Health UK Limited
