The Women's Health Diagnostics Gap Isn't Missing Tests, It's Missing Answers

LeadershipForbesWomenThe Women's Health Diagnostics Gap Isn't Missing Tests, It's Missing AnswersByGeri Stengel,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Geri Stengel writes about the success factors of women entrepreneurs. Follow AuthorAug 24, 2026, 07:00am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.SummaryThe women's health diagnostics gap is usually blamed on missing tests. Function's data suggests otherwise. The blood gets drawn, the results come back, nobody translates them. Co-founder Pranitha Patil, dismissed as a teenager despite abnormal labs, explains why more than half of Function's members are women, why she still refuses the women's health label, and what AI can't fix. Show More The women's health diagnostics gap isn't a missing test. It's a missing piece of interpretation, the one that connects symptoms a woman has lived with for years to what her results were saying all along.gettyKim Trowbridge spent years hearing that her broken sleep, shifting weight, and climbing cholesterol were just menopause. A Function member and retired environmental consultant from Cleveland kept getting standard panels. Nobody went deeper. When she finally pushed and joined Function, 10 of her 13 cardiovascular markers came back out of range, including elevated Lp(a) and hs-CRP, with no family history of heart disease."People are going around the traditional medical system because it's not serving them," she explains.The women's health diagnostics gap is almost always described the same way: Women don't get tested. That framing is incomplete, and the company sitting on 100 million lab results has the receipts. More than half of Function's members are women, and its co-founder's history points to something less convenient than missed tests. The blood got drawn. The numb...