Becker's Hospital Review

31 CIO / HEALTH IT Athenahealth Q3 Revenue up 10% From Last Year: 5 Things to Know By Jessica Kim Cohen Athenahealth released its third quarter earnings results Oct. 19. Here are five things to know about the company's performance. 1. Athenahealth posted $304.6 million in revenue for the third quarter, up 10.1 percent from $276.7 million during the same period one year prior. 2. Despite these gains, the company announced plans to re- organize and cut 9 percent of its 5,600-employee workforce by the end of the year. 3. The company reported $18.6 million in operating income during the third quarter, up 22.4 percent from $15.2 million from last year. 4. Athenahealth posted net income of $13 million, down 6.5 percent from $13.9 million one year prior. 5. The company revised its financial outlook, which previously projected $1.21 to $1.25 million in revenue by the end of the fiscal year. The updated 2017 financial outlook projects $1.2 million to $1.22 million in revenue. n Meditech Product Revenue up 33% in Q3: 4 Things to Know By Julie Spitzer M editech released financial results for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, noting a 33 percent jump in product revenue from the same time frame in 2016. Here are four things to know. 1. Product revenue increased from $27.4 million in the third quarter of 2016 to $41 million in the third quarter of 2017. This marked a 33 percent jump. 2. Meditech posted $46.5 million in net income for the nine months ended Sept. 30, down from $60.7 million for the same period in 2016. 3. Earnings per share for the third quarter were $0.47, down from $0.68 one year prior. 4. The U.S. market accounted for 89 percent of the com- pany's sales. n WSJ: Outcome Health Employees Allegedly Misled Advertisers With Inaccurate Reports By Jessica Kim Cohen A subset of employees at Outcome Health, a Chicago-based tech and ad- vertising startup, allegedly manipu- lated pricing and sales information to mislead pharmaceutical advertisers, according to e Wall Street Journal. For its investigation, e Wall Street Jour- nal reviewed internal documents and in- terviewed several advertisers and former Outcome Health employees. e Wall Street Journal found no evidence top executives were involved in the alleged misconduct. Here are six things to know about the con- troversy. 1. Outcome Health, which reported a $5.5 billion valuation in May, installs flat screens and tablets in physicians' offices at no cost. ese screens display patient-targeted videos including educational content and pharma- ceutical advertisements. 2. Outcome Health charges pharmaceutical companies to run advertisements on its flat screens and tablets. However, from 2014 to 2016, employees at the company reportedly charged advertisers for more screens than it had installed, people familiar with the matter told e Wall Street Journal. Other accusa- tions against the startup included employees allegedly manipulating performance surveys and third-party analyses. 3. Another alleged issue involved altering doc- uments meant to verify whether an advertise- ment ran on an appropriate physician's screen. Some pharmaceutical companies requested Outcome Health deliver screenshots of an ad- vertisement as proof it ran the content in the correct office. However, some employees would allegedly edit information, such as the time- stamp, to inappropriately verify the document. 4. Outcome Health has given "tens of millions of dollars in free advertising to customers" aer not meeting contractual terms, people familiar with the matter told e Wall Street Journal. In one instance, Johnson & Johnson allegedly complained aer field representa- tives noticed the company was being charged to run ads in offices that did not have screens. In return, Outcome Health reportedly offered to decrease the advertiser's costs. 5. Outcome Health officials told The Wall Street Journal an independent counsel will review the allegations. Lanny Davis, a lawyer and spokesman hired by Outcome Health, told The Wall Street Journal the company put three employees on paid leave during the review. "e company strongly denies the practice of misreporting of campaign information," he said. "e company's policy is to accurately report information to every customer on ev- ery program." 6. In an online statement emailed to Becker's Hospital Review, Outcome Health Founder and CEO Rishi Shah wrote, "If at any point we learn that a customer was misled in any way, we will share that promptly with the customer and remedy the situation immediately." He continued, "We appreciate the hard work of our dedicated employees, and want to re- iterate that adherence to our policies is not optional — anyone who violates them will be held accountable." n

• Cover