Dive Brief:
- Telehealth giant Amwell is reportedly preparing to go public on the heels of raising almost $200 million in funding amid widespread enthusiasm for telehealth.
- The 14-year-old vendor confidentially filed for an IPO earlier this week, hiring Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to lead the deal, according to CNBC. The IPO could take place in September, CNBC sources say.
- An Amwell spokesperson declined to confirm or deny reports of an IPO to Healthcare Dive, but the timing would be good for the company amid surging demand for virtual care and lowered regulatory barriers brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dive Insight:
Rumors have bubbled for months that Boston-based Amwell was exploring an IPO as more patients look to receive low-acuity medical care in the home amid the pandemic, sparking a seismic shift in healthcare delivery.
The company has seen a 1,000% increase in video visits due to COVID-19, but it's closer to 3,000% to 4,000% in some cases, Amwell CEO Roy Schoenberg told Healthcare Dive earlier this year.
The vendor in May raised $194 million in a Series C funding round to build out its telehealth offerings, bringing its total funding to $711 million across eight rounds. Major investors include Anthem, Philadelphia-based Jefferson Health and Japanese pharma Takeda.
Along with rebranding from "American Well" to Amwell in early March, the company has introduced new offerings amid the pandemic, including one for physician practices with fewer than 100 doctors, a national COVID-19 response program and COVID-specific workflows.
Its clients include 240 health systems, including giants like Cleveland Clinic, Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare and NewYork-Presbyterian, and 55 health plans including 36,000 employers.
Telehealth providers have been struggling to meet patient demand as more and more healthy individuals look to screen symptoms and connect with doctors without going to an office or hospital, where they could spread or potentially contract COVID-19. The Trump administration has pared back restrictions to telehealth since March, also bolstering sustained growth in the sector.
Though coping with a flood of patients hasn't been cheap, digital health players have seen their stock prices soar. Shares of rival Teladoc, which went public in 2015, are up almost 90% since the end of 2019, while remote monitoring and chronic care management company Livongo has doubled its stock price.
Some analysts expect telehealth use to flag in the second half of 2020 if the coronavirus loses steam, but others maintain tailwinds could persist for the next 12 to 18 months at least, until a vaccine is widely available, giving digital care players plenty of time to saturate the market.
Up to $250 billion of healthcare spend could be digitized, according to consultancy McKinsey — roughly a fifth of all estimated Medicare, Medicaid and commercial outpatient, office and home health spending for 2020. In comparison, the sum annual revenues of all U.S. telehealth companies were estimated at $3 billion prior to the pandemic.