CareInsite: Building a Medical B2B Network

This year, we’ve seen a myriad of online healthcare companies go public,
like Medscape, drkoop.com, Healtheon and so on.

Most of these companies have limited operating histories and minimal
revenues. Thus, it is very difficult to sort out the prospective winners
from the losers.

One company that looks particularly strong is CareInsite (CARI).

Yes, CareInsite also has a small revenue base. In its latest financial
report, the company had $1.2 million in revenues, with much of this
deriving from one customer, The Health Information Network Connection. As
for losses? $7.3 million.

But revenues should start to ramp soon. How? Recently, CareInsite signed
a four-year, $30 million deal with AOL (AOL, of course, also got warrants
in CareInsite).

However, this is not an advertising deal, but one based on transactional
income — paid primarily from clients.

But at this point, revenue growth is not the key metric. Rather, it is
building a huge network of physicians, payers, pharmacies and labs.

CareInsite has been a master at this, as the company has signed agreements
with such heavyweights as Caremark, Prudential Healthcare and National
Prescription Administrators. In all, CareInsite has access to 30 million
customers so far.

CareInsite has also built a massive database of physicians, numbering over
180,000.

Such moves will act as a powerful barrier to entry — to a market, as
everyone knows, is in excess of $1 trillion. In fact, some estimates show
that 25% of healthcare spending is wasteful. There has also been problems
in quality of care. In fact, there is a likelihood that the next big wave
of litigation will be against HMOs.

Think of CareInsite as the B2B hub for healthcare. The company, in
essense, is a secure, scalable platform that allows for transactions
between payers, pharmacies, clinical labs, patients. Basically, with this
network, physicians can make informed decisions about their patients.

There are three components to the technology: a) physician desktop
application (this provides physicians with patient clinical histories, best
practices and payer guidelines); b) CareChannel (this provides for secure
transmission of information across the CareInsite network of payer,
patients and physicians); CareExchange (this system integrates disparate
sources of information, to allow better analysis from physicians).

How will the company make money off this? By providing value added
services, such as claim processing, prescription drug ordering, and
administrative services.

Also, the company has top-notch management. For example, the CEO was the
founder of Medco Containment. This helps explain how the company has been
able to build its network so quickly. After all, the medical industry is
conservative. But CareInsite knows how to deal with this.

No doubt, management will surely build on its network. And as the value of
it increases more and more, CareInsite will be a standout in the crowded
online medical space.